In the last year, the one word that has been debated and thrown around a lot is the word tolerance. Locating itself in this conflicted milieu and adding its bit to the debate around the concept, the third edition of the CGK Rashtriya Rangotsava adopted tolerance as its theme. Hosted by Ranganiranthara at the newly renovated Ravindra Kalakshetra, the festival hosted a variety of vernacular plays. Directed by Ayatollah Khan, Rangrez Sarokar’s Gandhi Ne Kaha Tha approached the idea of tolerance by examining the ideals of Gandhi and juxtaposing them in post-independent India. Set in post-Partition India, when the riot-stricken country was gasping for communal harmony, Khan’s play is about Tarakeshwar Pandey, a Gandhian, and his adopted son, Aftab. After losing his son, Suraj, in the riots, Pandey is urged by Gandhi to adopt a Muslim orphan; search for another ‘Suraj’, says Gandhi. The answer to violence is truth, love and brotherhood, he adds. The play then traces the life of Aftab, the adopted son of Pandey, who is brought up as a Muslim and a Gandhian, but who finds it increasingly difficult to be both in independent India.
The script reigns supreme in Khan’s play and demands audience attention to the lengthy dialogues penned in eloquent Hindustani. There is a raging discussion on violence and non-violence, the difference between patriotism and an India-Pakistan cricket match and the binaries of Godse and Gandhi. Incidentally, what is present in the dialogues is nowhere to be seen either in the sets or the stage. Further, while Khan’s play can rely on the popularity of Gandhi as an icon, the lack of a back story for Pandey fails to bring us closer to him. Therefore, what Gandhi Ne Kaha Tha becomes is an impassioned but distant story of two Gandhians struggling to see their ideals through. Aftab’s understanding of insaniyat (humanity) being bigger than any religion is the overarching message of the play- again one that is delivered rather than shown. However, there is a poignant scene in which, on hearing that his son is part of a terror group, a heart-broken Pandey deems that this is the day that Gandhi has truly died.
The team from Manipal Institute of Technology approached the theme by examining how one reacts when exposed to differing points of view. Set in a play within a play format, Ravanleela , written and directed by Abhinav Grover, intelligently used the form to portray a typical example of intolerance. A bunch of actors put up a play in which Ravan is the hero. In other words, they offered a radically different version of Ramayana in which Ravan is not as bad as he is made out to be. He has abducted Sita not because he is attracted to her but because she is actually Vedavathi, his long-lost daughter. He had to let go of his daughter as soon as she was born because of a prophecy that she will cause the destruction of his family. Now, he has a chance to meet his daughter again. But can Ravan, a noble father, win the battle that Rama, Sita’s husband, is about to wage? Ravan at war…and the curtains come down. The cast then expressed their gratitude, said they had no intention of offending anyone and exited the stage. The lights go off. Just then, a voice from the audience emerges, angry and gruff. This man, clad in a kurta and wearing a tilak on his forehead is a self-professed Ram bhakt . Offended by the version of the play he just witnessed, he along with his accomplice, harasses the actors and threatens to kill them even. Who is the real demon, asks the play? The actor who portrayed a radical version of Ravan or the man who attacked him for doing so? It was a play steeped in contemporary debates surrounding freedom of expression and its off-shoots of what constitutes the limits of one’s tolerance. Grover fused form and content so well that along with challenging the limits of freedom of expression, he also challenged the limits of the stage and used set design and his cast to show rather than tell. A single tree in the middle of the stage doubled up as the Ashoka Vana in the play within the play and a site of torture in the second half as the Ram bhakt harasses the actor who played Sita in the play. Ravan was essayed by three actors- with two others being the evil-alter egos of Ravan. The larger idea was to transpose the demon onto the auditorium, not just the stage. Music too with a combination of the dholak, drums, the electric guitar and the chant of Sanskrit hymns created a sonic version of anger, screaming and asking us to pass the test of hatred. With the actors stepping into the space of the audience, it made the viewers stakeholders in the play too - a Grotowski-esque application of theatre.
The scenarios that both plays presented were instantly recognisable but I wondered if the antithesis of intolerance was indeed tolerance? Somehow, tolerance seemed inadequate in describing what both these plays aspired towards. More than tolerance, themes as such as non-violence and humanism emerged as everlasting ones in Khan’s play. And acceptance or a sense of harmony or even humanity, again, worked better as the remedy for intolerance in Ravanleela. After all, can we slot all our experiences and ideals between the binaries of tolerance and intolerance alone?
