Actor Mallika Taneja, with her short bob and slender frame, fits right in at the fairly swanky coffee shop in Versova where we are meeting. We’re surrounded by a mixed crowd: middle-aged ladies there to have a chat, youngsters sitting around a guitar, and the solitary stragglers doing their own thing, staring into some gadget or the other.
Angry with a purpose
Taneja appears to be weighed down after a flight from Delhi to Mumbai. She’s tired, but as it turns out, not just because of her journey. “I feel like I’m hiding in homes and basements,” she says. “This is complicated because on the one hand, I enjoy very much the home shows and I enjoy very much the space that one has been able to create, but I am frustrated at being thrown into corners and I’m frustrated by my own inability to negotiate and navigate the scene.”
Taneja’s talking about Thoda Dhyan Se , a piece she’s been performing for the past two-and-a-half years. It’s a show that has evolved from an eight-minute sketch crafted in the short span of 15 minutes after a highly-publicised case of sexual assault that took place in Mumbai in 2013.
The Delhi-born actor, by her own admission, has always been angry, frothing at the mouth when something grated on her nerves. Of course, most women in this world are seething. When a simple task gets turned into a continuous struggle, fury is a legitimate emotion. Growing up, Taneja was inarticulate about her emotions. In the years that she’s spent honing her craft, the theatre actor has learnt to structure, streamline and channelise her feelings. The result has been Thoda Dhyan Se , a standout piece among her body of work, all of which has a socio-political resonance.
The title of the piece is a seemingly innocuous phrase that sits at the tip of everyone’s tongue, almost always offered as concerned caution. But is its use really justified? When we tell our girls to be ‘careful’ and take certain precautions, what exactly are we conveying? That it’s entirely their responsibility to protect themselves. This patriarchal discourse is one of Taneja’s primary objectives. “The thing about experience is that it sits in our bodies and we don’t forget it,” she says, alluding to all that she’s been through. “It sits in ways we don’t even know, and it comes out in ways we can’t even imagine.”
Stark and stripped
A lot has been written about the solo piece. It starts with Taneja completely baring herself to the audience. As the seconds tick away uncomfortably, she gazes fiercely into the eyes of the people watching her with unflinching concentration. Finally, after what seems like a very long, laboured time, she breaks into a beguiling smile that instantly cuts the tension in the room despite her exposed body. With increasing frenzy, her tongue-in-cheek monologue cautions and often justifies women’s need to ‘be careful’. As her dramatic address reaches a crescendo, she’s layered herself with multiple items of clothing, with everything from shorts and tops, to a dress and even gloves at the end. As if by completely covering up their body women can prevent untoward incidents.
Because of the nature of the piece — obviously Taneja’s performative state — it’s been impossible to stage Thoda Dhyan Se at a commercial venue. “Who’s going to convince a venue to sell tickets?” she asks. “I understand. It’s okay for me to say, ‘if something happens we’ll see’, but I can’t expect this out of the other people.” That said, the 32-year-old is entirely aware of how meta the situation is. “It’s a catch-22 with the piece,” she acknowledges. “The fear psychosis that we talk about in the piece is actually the kind of fear psychosis that the piece gets trapped in.”
In India, Taneja has been compelled to take up several security measures to avoid trouble. “There’s a whole lot of caution I have to take, I don’t want to be slut-shamed, I don’t want a court case, nobody does,” she says. “Because I ride solo on this, I feel like I’m already under so much scrutiny, I can’t deal with more.”
The burden of beauty
Under the glare of a room full of people, every performance requires certain confidence in your body. And Taneja is human, like all of us with all our insecurities, fears and vulnerabilities. “You name it and it’s crossed my mind,” she reveals. “I’m full of body issues.” Hair often crosses her mind, but she’s also equally quick to dismiss it. “I give myself time and let it be. I do worry that if I wax my arms, am I becoming everything I stand against? I negotiate all of this.”
Surprisingly, her most difficult performance has been in Paris, when a group of teenagers was permitted to attend a show. Thanks to their persistent giggling, Taneja was forced to ask the audience to choose between the gaggle of kids and her performance. “I have never felt more naked and humiliated on stage in life — no matter what I was wearing — than I felt that day. I was going to walk off.” She also admits that audiences in India are a lot more open-minded than we give them credit for. It’s believable, considering Taneja’s Mumbai tour was sold out well before the first performance.
High expectations
Since its debut in 2013, Thoda Dhyan Se has gone through a paradigm shift. “What you’re going to watch is 20 minutes long (give or take) and the entire show is about an hour, in two parts. The second part is an interaction with the audience and this is going to be interesting,” Taneja says. Through time and inputs from different audiences, she has devised the piece in Hindi and English with a lot of improvisation. “Now the text is a lot more, and I just keep collecting,” she says about her writing process. “I did some Internet research on how to be safe in India, I loved it… how not to get raped. Of course, our politicians are amazing, constant material. It keeps evolving and changing.”
The series of shows in Mumbai is the first time Taneja has ever performed in the city. “I don’t know Mumbai audiences and I don’t know what sort of conversations around beauty, desire and safety are going to happen.” But she won’t be sitting and taking audience questions, she will be the one doing the asking. “I’m interested in seeing what the audience thinks.” Let’s hope Mumbai trumps Paris in this case.
Contact keepyourhelmeton@gmail.com for more information onThoda Dhyan Se.
