Veteran director Mala Kumar’s latest presentation was an adaptation of Vijay Tendulkar’s classic play Jat Hi Poochho Sadhu Ki. She said that casteism is as relevant today in villages as it was decades ago. By Shrabasti Mallik
Vijay Tendulkar’s Jat Hi Poochho Sadhu Ki is a riveting script that refuses to die even after decades. It has been presented on stage time and again and will always be topical as long as casteism haunts India. In a village, when Mahipal, the protagonist of the play, arrives, the first question that villagers have is regarding his jaat (caste). That he is a well-educated guy and has come to enlighten villagers hold no relevance to them. This time, veteran theatre director Mala Kumar presented the story in quite an engaging way. She first saw the play some 30 years ago and it left a strong impact on her. “It was directed by Rajinder Nath and was performed by his theatre company Abhiyan. The performance was so powerful and the story and narration were so gripping that I decided that someday I would also direct the play,” she said.
Kumar was smitten by the playwright’s knack of narrating serious issues with wit and humour. “Tendulkar was a very sound playwright. He knew the pulse of the audience. He realised that if you try to directly address social issues on stage, it will not impress masses. You have to do it with fun and laughter,” she explained.
The play revolves around an educated tutor who is boycotted by villagers because he belongs to a lower caste. He is plummeted into a life of constant differentiation. The villagers do not include him in their daily activities. Tendulkar treated the subject with a lot of comic elements to bring out the folly and to show how baseless the entire caste system was. “A comic exposure of the caste-ridden Indian society and the plight of the intermediary caste has been an evergreen source of laughter,” the director added.
The latest production was performed by Kumar’s theatre group Nepathya (meaning back stage). She, however, faced a little difficulty with the actors who could not identify themselves with the character and the issue of casteism. “There were a lot of human aspects that we needed to address because most of the actors were born and brought up in the city and were unfamiliar to the subject,” she said. It took Kumar and the actor three months of rigorous training and practice to put the play together.
Although, the entire play was adapted from Tendulkar’s script, Kumar made a few subtle changes to keep up with the times. In the original script, Mahipal held a BA degree while in the play he was shown a post graduate. “In the 80s when Tendulkar wrote the play, a BA degree was a very big thing. So I decided to upgrade to keep up with the times,” she said.
The play was also narrated by Mahipal himself, which made it a bit interactive. In between scenes, Mahipal would appear solo on stage and narrate his experience — what he was going through, how he was feeling and how he wished to be treated better. “I wanted the play to be communicative. When a protagonist is on the stage with just the spotlight on him, speaking about his emotions, the audience connects to him and that is where the success of a play lies,” she rounded up.