"I knew that I had come face to face with someone whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself."
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray Ch. 1
Certain thoughts, patterns and thought patterns are so absorbing that one begins to fear being completely absorbed, leaving behind very little, if at all of the “Self”.
To describe such situations, TheLoneWolf often uses quotes, and Oscar Wilde very often, does the trick.
Another Saturday evening visit to the India Habitat Centre although for another play, will be remembered more for the painting at the gallery than the play itself.
Final Solutions
Mahesh Dattani’s “Final Solution”, performed in Hindi by the Asmita Group was brilliant only in bursts, with the overall effect not being intense enough to provoke thoughts or force one to reflect upon the thoughts that pass by as a side effect.
The play (script) itself was very well thought through, especially in the way the story moves between the past and the present, with a diary written by a young girl before the partition being the window between the past and the present. The two times have not been very different, with communal violence still being a reality, often finding its justification in the unfortunate reality of the Partition.
But, somehow, the overall effect the play had on Him was not something He would describe as being “thought provoking”. Yes, we, as a society still do not easily accept Hindu-Muslim marriages. Inter caste marriages are only beginning to be accepted, and even this, only among the sophisticated, elite classes who are somehow, more often than not, more broad minded than the economically backward masses.
The audience for plays tends to be more often than not, the social elite and people from what are called “the upper middle classes”. So, it may just be that the context of the play is quite lost on the audience, in that, no one in the audience would have indulged in violence anyway!
But then, He does think, that as a society, and as a nation, we still have a long way to go before we can consider ourselves truly secular, and there were a few acts in the play which brought back such thoughts to the fore.
The point where Babban ( a Muslim) takes a Hindu idol and places it on his hand, with all due respect and watches it in awe, only to demonstrate that the idol was not revolting or reducing him to ashes was well portrayed.
Bajrang Bali Singh, who played Babban continues to impress, and He can only recollect how he (the actor) had been brilliant indeed as Basavanna in Rakt Kalyan (a previous weekend).
Javed, a character one would love to hate at certain points of time during the play, and at other times would sympathise with, was very, very well portrayed by Susan Brar, and he is one man to watch out for. With a movie release in the pipeline, he had come down from Mumbai only to perform in the play, and as TheLoneWolf finds out later, most artistes have such dreams to help them survive and sustain. For, they don’t get paid anything at all, and not all shows even cover the costs of the stage.
In all, a watchable play, no doubt, and definitely an evening well spent. Only that, if you were expecting to be moved and provoked, you may be in for some disappointment.
Worshipper: – Of Paintings and Off Paintings alike. (Coming soon!)
