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June 26, 2000

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It's Israel hour now. And we don't just mean Mr Advani's visit abroad. The capital's Shaurya theatre group is putting up Uljhe Huye Log -- from Yosef Bar Yosef's Hebrew play Difficult People -- in Delhi, Calcutta and Jamshedpur. Set in 1960s England, it's about a family of Jewish refugees from Russia. Rachel is a free-spirited 44-year-old ("a spinster, not a virgin," as she points out); and Simon is her brother who finds what he thinks is salvation for his sibling: a suitor from a Jewish family back home.
The Israel Embassy was looking for someone to translate a Hebrew work into Hindi, when they chanced upon Uljhe Huye Log, apparently translated by Sheeli Bhasin from an English translation. If they had some information on, and contact with, Bhasin, it might have thrown some light on her interpretation. In its present form, Shaurya would do well to edit the action, or rather inaction, in Act 1. And as director Nav Ratan Gautam admits, "It would have been nice if the play was adapted to the Indian situation to help audiences here relate to it". But the embassy's Shoshana Haim explains, "You must understand, our countries have had diplomatic links for a very short time ... This is the only Hindi translation of a Hebrew script we could find. " It's a start.

-Anna M.M. Vetticad

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