Vibrant beats of the mridangam mark the entry of actors in Koothu-p-Pattarai’s play, ‘England’ (script: N.Muthuswamy; direction: Pralayan) at ‘Koothambalam Meenakshi’, Virugambakkam. The actors wrap themselves in cloth, and different years are announced, each a landmark in the history of the Independence Movement.
1919: Shots are fired and the actors fall down; it is the year of the Jallianwalla Bagh massacre.
1928: The year Lala Lajpat Rai was hit by the batons of policemen, and died.
1930: The Dandi march.
But even as the years are called out, the men remain cocooned in their wraps, looks of bliss on their faces. The cloth in which they are wrapped is soft, silky, and more important, woven by men who speak English. The slave mentality is well and truly in place. The Independence movement revives pride in indigenous weaving, and encourages people to throw off the yoke of foreign domination.
But have all the people of this country really been liberated? Those unable to eke out a living in villages, end up in cities- anonymous citizens of sprawling metropolises, where they live cheek by jowl in hundred square feet houses.
The bullock cart is a recurring motif in the play. Are some people always expected to obey the orders of others, like the bullocks that unquestioningly obey their masters? Or are we like the passengers in a bullock cart - so long as we own a cart and own the bullocks, we do not care about anything else? Isn’t that the indifference that most of us show to the plight of others? All we care about are our creature comforts.
How can a country be termed free, if a man and a woman in love with each other cannot marry, because the marriage goes against tradition? The play shows a man in love with a woman from the upper crust of society. He is killed because he dared to love her.
The killer triumphantly strikes an Asoka pillar nearby – striking at the very symbol of free India. But the oppressed will no longer take things lying down. They have found their voice. The play ends with their striking the ‘parai’ - proclaiming that it will no longer be just an instrument played as part of rituals, but that it is a symbol of their awakening. It marks their determination to fight for their space under the sun.
‘England’ asked if we were truly free, when hierarchies were reinforced by harking back to the dead wood of tradition.
