Chennai-based freelance writer Nandini Krishnan's ‘Baby' plunges into the unsettling world of incest in its examination of the psychological motivations underpinning a father-daughter relationship that crosses over from filial affection to erotic love.
What prompted you to write a play about incest?
Well, the idea struck me a long time ago. Someone commissioned an article on incest, so I began to research the topic. I spoke to psychiatrists as well as people who were participants in incestuous relationships. However, I focussed more on consensual as opposed to abusive incestuous relationships. Although incestuous abuse, especially of children, does occur, I was surprised and also intrigued by the many instances of incest that took place between consenting adults. For people like you and me, it's quite difficult to comprehend why someone would want to have a sexual relationship with a close family member — we generally find the idea repellent — and this made me very interested in investigating why consensual incest occurs, and in what contexts.
Did you find an answer to this question?
I suppose there's no one answer to such a complex issue. People's reasons for what they were doing varied. One psychiatrist told me that forming a sexual relationship with a family member was often done as a way of bonding. In the case of parent-child incest, it was sometimes an attempt to forge a connection with a biological parent from whom the child had been separated. This was the most common, I found. In fact, there were a lot of responses after my article. I was contacted by various people who were involved in incestuous relationships — some felt comforted by my article, they felt less alone, and less ‘different'.
Your play explores the psychological underpinnings of an incestuous father-daughter relationship. This is an uncomfortable choice of subject, and one that will, of course, unsettle audiences. Are we expected to see their relationship as ‘wrong'? Do you see it as a moral transgression?
I can't judge, I've never felt those emotions, or been in a situation that may have prompted them. The play isn't asking you to take a moral stance at all, it's asking you to think about something that you may not ordinarily give much thought to — or want to give much thought to. Incidentally, I had a high fever whilst I was writing it, and my friend and fellow playwright Anupam Chandrashekar joked that “delirium is good for drama”. But on a serious note, no, the play neither endorses nor condemns, nor does it seek to pose a moral dilemma from which you are expected to draw a stance. It just wants to make you think; perhaps even push you to understand one particular backdrop of incestuous desire.
And yet there's the definite sense that things aren't quite right. The characters are rarely happy…
The father feels guilty for being a sort of predator — he isn't really, but of course he feels like he's taking advantage of his daughter. And the daughter feels guilty for making him feel guilty. So it goes on…I suppose they are stuck in a cyclical sort of torment of shame and guilt.
What made you opt for the epistolary format?
That's just how it happened, I didn't really plan it. I don't feel any ownership for the things I write. It's a world of characters and a world of people — I'm just a medium. When I sat down to write I wanted to begin with the lonely old man, and then it sort of on its own, spontaneously blossomed into a series of correspondences. Actually, I recently discovered some letters sent between my grandparents, and the language and way they wrote influenced the style of the letters that the father writes to his wife when she is pregnant with their daughter and staying with her family. That was a time when everyone spoke a high standard of English, and they enjoyed word play and the mastery they had over the language.
The title of the play, ‘Baby', seems ambiguous…
Yes, definitely. ‘Baby' is a term of endearment, but it can be used in both the filial as well as erotic context. At what point does their love crossover from the filial to the erotic? Where is that line, and what is that turning point? It also refers to the daughter's insistence on having her father's child.
