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The rain within
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No.1, Madhav Baug is a gripping story of suppressed voices
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Photo: Bhagya Prakash K.
Legitimate enough Vyjayanti shockingly stumbles into her son’s sexual preferences
A small room. Low lights. 25-odd people huddled close to each other. At the other end of this tiny space is what seems like the drawing room of a modest apartment.
It is Rangashankara’s near perfect-setting for intimate theatre, up on their terrace.
The eager-beaver audience, who had seen Revathi, the sensitive Tamil film actor on silver screen for almost two decades, wait for the drama to unfold. They can’t wait to see her from up close; her first attempt at theatre, in a performing space so completely deglamorised.
“No. 1, Madhav Baug”, written by the eminent Marathi playwright-director Chetan Datar, leads you to believe that it is the story of the middle-aged Vyjayanti (played by Revathi), who has three grown up sons. Vyjayanti, a romantic at heart, bunks office on a rainy day in Mumbai for sheer indulgence. She does everything she loves: drinks endless cups of tea with hot bhajias, reads poetry, listens to music, even as she does a recap for you, for herself, the story of her life.
She keeps – again and again – talking about her youngest, favourite son, also to talk about his father; the man she loved deeply, not her husband.
Every now and then, in this engaging stream of consciousness narrative, Vyjayanti suggests, how this man, the only man who made a dent in her life, gave her a hearing (“I wish I could talk to him, he understands”).
She goes through the break up of her marriage, upbringing of her sons…
As she is enjoying this wonderful time with her own self, there is this anonymous caller, who, at once, severely disturbs the balance of her life.
Inside, outside
The story from this point ceases to be hers. Vyjayanti now, is suddenly pushed to deal with the “abnormal” sexual preferences of her son.
She, someone who values personal space, finds herself rummaging, fumbling through cupboards, drawers, under the beds of her sons and discovers it is her favourite son, the caller was talking about.
The story-play, gains a very important dimension at this juncture, questioning the nature of choices itself, even as it makes a deep comment about the complexities of human relationships. Even when it seems like we have choices, are they democratic?
In the case of a sexual minority, there is no room for even a choice is what Vyjayanti painfully discovers on reading his dairy. He pleads helplessly: “Mine is a natural attraction only for men, what do I do?”
The script handles with remarkable sensitivity the problems of a queer relationship: separation from partners who move away to conform, the loneliness, the pain, the anguish, the exploitation and most importantly the lack of a shoulder to cry on. For Vyjayanti, who, in all these years, hasn’t been able to unravel the intricacies of her own, what the world calls a “normal relationship”, this is a bigger emotional blow.
Not merely because of her son’s sexual preferences, but because of the horrifying aloneness of his journey. “I’m not going to let him die,” she says, with great disdain for the storyteller, who opts for easy solutions to not-so-easy problems.
Vyjayanti decides to be there for her favourite son, even as she struggles to resign herself to his unusual sexual behaviour.
Chetan Datar’s story is powerful, not just because it addresses a problem that is contemporary, but also for the way in which it presents the dilemmas of human relationships. He, in a very subtle way, is also holding before us, yet another subaltern of our times, who inhabits our own space. His tribulations occupy the realm of the body, the desire; however, not base.
The graceful Revathi turned out to be a fine story teller and was less of a theatre actor. The 35-minute presentation was gripping, but Revathi, who is used to subtler emoting for the camera, seemed to shy away from theatre acting. This is probably true of Marium Jetpurwala too, who directed it.
It was an interesting experience, nevertheless.
DEEPA GANESH
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