The Padatik ensemble touches top form collectively on the latest productions in their two ongoing series, the literary Writers on Stage and the informal Theatre in Jeans. Beparwāh Manto celebrates the much-staged Manto, while Andhon kā Hāthi revisits one of the warhorses (rather elephants) of Hindi theatre, a perennial with young and amateur groups for the last half-century. Both posed tests of originality caused by our general familiarity with the source texts.
So many dramatizations of Manto’s most famous stories have taken place, what can one say that is new? Anubha Fatehpuria skirts this problem by, first, turning her lens on his life, using passages from his diverse writings to create an engaging montage; and, second, downplaying his feted works in favour of the lesser-known ones. This gives viewers biographical insight, like on his friendships, as well as fresh nuggets from his pen, for example his coinage of the word hiptollāh foxing everyone. On the other hand, we don’t learn much about his wife and family or his opinions on Pakistan where he spent his last seven years, and wonder whether he deliberately remained tight-lipped on these matters: ironic for one so beparwāh (carefree) as him. Moreover, some of the extracts don’t lift the show, particularly the opening “mini-stories” and the acerbic letters to Uncle Sam, which continue too long.
The directorial vision innovates, segregating the audience into two blocks on opposite sides of the central acting area, replicating the Partition, or opportunistically appropriating the greenroom window for a character to peep out from. The two young Mantos wear white shirts and khaki trousers (thankfully not half-pants matching a frightful uniform of our times). While Dinesh Poddar’s chiaroscuro lighting designs an impressionistic beginning, the small xerox-quality pictures on Manto’s wall look incongruously tacky.
Sharad Joshi’s one-hour satire Andhon kā Hāthi, written after Indira Gandhi declared Emergency (as his daughter Bani Sharad has confirmed), applied the ancient parable about perception, knowledge and wisdom to politics. Its ambiguity meant that the five blind persons could refer to everybody from civilians to leaders. Even though Joshi asked us to take it metaphorically, the stereotyped characterization of the blind as lesser mortals who cannot “see” demands rethinking today. Blind people would not just stand in one place and feel only one limb or part of the animal, and would very soon realize it possesses other attributes. We must either show greater empathy and sensitivity to describe them realistically (for instance with dark glasses and mobility canes), or we should subvert the script completely (let’s say the blind quintet pretends to voice simple reactions for the Sutradhar’s benefit).
I missed such a layer of complexity in the normally complex Vinay Sharma’s relatively straightforward direction. Furthermore, the real elephant in the room (read India) stayed elusive, not even illusory. The actors gave their best, with the same energy as in Beparwāh Manto, but the stage business of rearranging benches, casually befitting the Theatre in Jeans project, has appeared in Padatik before, so it struck me as déjà vu.
12 August 2024