Theatre for Change

www.hindu.com/mag/2006/07/16/stories/2006071600050200.htm

INDIA BEATS

Multi-dimensional plots of change

SMITA JAIN

`The first and only feminist-activist' theatre group in the country, Pandies is focussing on social change through the medium of theatre.

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"These workshops are a window into a different world for these children. They are normally never asked their opinion on serious issues; giving them this platform has inspired positive attitudinal shifts

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RELEVANT TO THE TIMES: At a workshop with children.

EVERY alternate Saturday morning, children living in the slums of Nithari, in Noida, wake up in a state of frenzied excitement. They rush to their school, an NGO called Saksham, and wait patiently for its doors to open. The children are waiting eagerly for "Sanjay Bhaiya" who, along with his theatre troupe, has been conducting three-hour informative, entertaining and thought-provoking workshops for the children within the school.

The Delhi-based theatre troupe, `Pandies', (after a derogatory term devised by the British to refer to the Indian insurgent Mangal Pandey) is, as its name suggests, not your ordinary theatre troupe. Pandies prides itself on being the first and only feminist-activist theatre group in the country that is, says its founder Sanjay Kumar, "committed to staging plays relevant to our ethos and time".

From the margins

Speaking about the troupe's origins and ideals, he adds, "Pandies' theatre is from the margins and is a theatre of children, women, slum-dwellers, the homeless, and of vulnerable sections and subsections within those margins. The issues that we choose revolve around women because the group believes if our society is to head anywhere, it has to become more women-oriented and woman-friendly."

On this Saturday, they are performing short skits specially prepared for the children. One skit, though complex, is particularly riveting. It describes the story of a pregnant young woman who is convinced by her lover to leave their village for Delhi in order to, ostensibly, escape parental wrath and marry. After reaching Delhi, however, the man takes the woman to a park behind Jawaharlal Nehru University, rapes and subsequently throttles her. The woman survives and is cared for by residents of a nearby slum, where she delivers her baby. Uneducated and without any vocational training, she and her son are forced into a life of destitution and poverty.

Sensitive but blunt

Despite the sensitive nature of the multi-dimensional plot, Sanjay and his troupe mince no words when discussing it with the children. "Do you think the man loves the woman?" he asks. "Do you think the woman should have left her village?" And, most astonishingly to all of us present: "Did you know that this was based on a true story?"

Each question is followed by a thoughtful silence, after which both girls and boys venture replies. "I don't think the man loved the woman. I think he just wanted to use her for fun, which is not right," says Azharuddin, whose father is a tailor in a garment factory.

Soni, 15, whose parents run a roadside tea stall, raises her hand shyly, but speaks confidently and with emotion. "The woman shouldn't have left without informing her parents or discussing it with anyone. This is the reason why education is so important, especially for girls. If she was educated, she would have been able to make a more informed decision, and at least would have been able to support herself."

"These workshops are a window into a different world for these children," says Nadira Razak, co-founder of Saksham. "These children are normally never asked their opinions on serious issues; giving them this platform has inspired positive attitudinal shifts," she says. Indeed, within the short span of two months, she says, the impact is already evident in the children's increased confidence; they eagerly look forward to their first on-stage performance later this year.

Begun as a small university movement in Delhi in 1987, Pandies has grown into a robust troupe with over 70 members, many of whom are college students interested in social change through theatre. Isha, a recent graduate of Hansraj College, has been an ardent member of the troupe for two years and doesn't plan on leaving anytime soon. "Pandies gives us a space of freedom where we don't have to worry about what we're saying," she says. "Not only do we get to voice our opinions, we actually do something about them as well. And because we all volunteer our time and skills, it is truly an activist forum."

Serious issues

The troupe has one or two major performances each year and in the interim, they perform at slums, schools, and colleges. Since its founding, Pandies has tackled issues such as rape, prostitution, HIV, the Mental Health Act and its relation to women, and love and marriage.

In addition to their work in Delhi, Pandies has conducted workshops and performed in theatre festivals both nationally and internationally. In 2005, when they had adopted the theme of "Anti-Communalism", the troupe conducted a seven-day workshop in Gulmarg, Kashmir involving 55 Kashmiri Pundit and Kashmiri Muslim girls and boys between 10 and 16 years. Says Sanjay, "It was a challenge to put together a production in seven days with children from these two volatile communities. In addition to their different religious backgrounds, many were poor, some were orphaned, and most were traumatised by the violence they had witnessed. However, our methodology of individual and collective exercises, short story writing, creating 20-minute skits, and the final 90-minute production turned out to be extremely successful."

At the moment, the troupe is rehearsing for their next performance at the Sri Ram Centre in Delhi, a montage of three individual pieces, each critiquing modern-day constructions of masculinity and the state from the perspective of a female protagonist. With elements from real-life stories and absorbing themes, the mid-August performance is not to be missed.

For more information about Pandies, contact Sanjay at pandies@netscape.net

E-mail the writer at smitajain2@gmail.com