Bhanu Bharati’s Bapu-Our Contemporary is a solo enactment commenting on prevalent political situations. The director spoke to Utpal K Banerjee
The man was called “Bapu” by the whole nation. His voice mattered most in the polity: in the monumental movement of resistance and civil disobedience sweeping across the subcontinent. Clad in a loin-cloth most of the time — throwing in a covering for the upper body while attending the Round Table conference at the Westminster, UK — that earned him the sobriquet of “half-naked fakir” from Sir Winston Churchill, the slightly-built man shook the foundations of the mighty empire where the sun never set.
Change the scenario to the mid-40s for the colonial power after having experienced a devastating World War that had ravaged both the Eastern and Western tracts of vast inhabited lands and left millions dead or maimed. In India, for a multiplicity of reasons that included unprecedented rise of the multitudes at Gandhi’s clarion call for “do or die” during the Quit India Movement, and with all the leaders jailed — but not excluding Netaji’s Indian National Army knocking hard at the gates of Kohima and Naval-Mutiny bugles sounding at Bombay Port — the very foundations of the empire seemed shaken. Cripps Mission had come with face-saving proposals for devolution of power, lord Mountbatten followed with hurriedly drawn plans for India’s Partition and the recently-released national leaders went into a huddle.
Bapu-Our Contemporary, presented by Aaj Theatre Company from the Capital, recreates the national milieu at this juncture. Maulana Azad, presiding over National Congress, seems to have sent a secret missive to the Cripps Mission, the existence of which he later denies to Mahatma Gandhi; Sardar Patel declines to explain implications of the leadership deliberations to Mahatma; and almost all other leaders attempt to avoid him, including Jawaharlal Nehru on whom, he had said, his mantle would fall. And there, on an almost bare stage sits — or occasionally struts — Bapu: an utterly lonely man whom all the leaders have omitted to consult at that critical hour of the country.
Directed by thespian Bhanu Bharati, Bapu is a powerful solo enactment of the eponymous role by Sunit Tandon, the veteran stage-TV personality, for over an hour and a half. It is a shearing, self-critical introspection by Gandhi. An isolated, forsaken person, he makes the land’s esteemed leaders stand as though in a cavalcade in front, and asks them individually agonising questions on what had gone wrong. In a muted voice choked in emotion, he enquires where exactly his life-long quest for truth, compassion and, especially non-violence has gone awry. It is a never-ending self-appraisal that only three bullets could terminate with the muffled cry: “Hey Ram!”
Asked how he created the context of his play, Bhanu responded, “The late 19th and early 20th century experienced unprecedented violence globally. The most tyrannical and exploitative polity, the world over, scarred the face of humanity. But then there were movements and tall people who tried to restore the affairs of the world.”
He added, “Again we have entered into the times when the ugly face of violence and intolerance is raising its head and mankind’s future looks bleak. It has become necessary, therefore, to reflect on the affairs of man: particularly in politics.”