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June 19, 2000 |
INDIA TODAY | DAILY NEWS | ASTROLOGY | HOME |
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 Border crossings This
is an experiment of sorts," says Pakistani playwright Shahid Nadeem.
When Ajoka Theatre of Pakistan and Bangladesh Institute of Theatre Art
joined hands to stage his Dukhini last week, it was as much a trial for
theatre lovers in Delhi (then on to Chandigarh and Calcutta), as it was
for the artistes. It was a Bengali-Urdu-English performance, and a bold
subject: the trafficking of Bangladeshi women in Pakistan. If there were
elements missing in the treatment, the audience didn't seem to mind,
bowled over as they were by the artistic border crossing, the presence in
the cast of veteran actress Uzra Butt, and in the audience of her star
sister Zora Segal. But the characters were particularly ill-served by
patches in the script that boasted such trite lines as "I'm not a
prostitute. Main bhi kisi ki maa hoon, kisi ki behen hoon, kisi ki beti
hoon (I too am somebody's mother, sister, daughter)." That apart,
although the action revolved around a rather morbid central character --
the grave of a hapless Bangladeshi woman who burnt herself to death -- it
managed to move without being miserable. Perhaps because, as Nadeem put
it, "where common interests can bind us, so can common
suffering." So it did.
-Anna
M.M. Vetticad
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