As celebrations of 75 years of Independence begin, my
memories take me back to that year (I can’t believe it’s been 25 years!) when
we celebrated 50 years of Independence.
I had joined Disha, a street play group formed by the late
Anjum Nair, a charismatic and intelligent young man who then worked at the Mid-Day
newspaper. At the time I had wanted to get out of my shell and learn to speak more
confidently in public. My last attempt at public speaking had been at a
traditional day event at college where I had been dressed in the Malayali
mundu-veshti and was supposed to say a few lines in Malayalam. I was so
nervous that Malayalam flew out of the window with the result that the audience
was mystified at hearing me talk in English after I had said that I was going to
speak in Malayalam. *facepalm*
So, I joined Disha and we decided to perform a play that
had been written by Anjum and performed successfully at previous occasions. The
play was about how the soul of the common man urged him to not
to give in to corruption and do better, be better. I was given the role of the ‘soul’
or ‘atma’ which from all accounts had been performed spectacularly by Anjum’s
sister previously. As the play progressed, she had been reputed to cry real
tears.
Suitably intimidated by my role’s history, I took it on. I
soon discovered that a good actor needs to lose all inhibitions in front of an audience which was a problem for my overthinking brain. All I could
do to bring out the pathos of the moment was dive into the most unpleasant
memories I had, just so I could act with some conviction.
Because it was the 50th year celebrations of our
Independence, Anjum and his father had arranged for us to perform our play on
streets and public spaces, in and around the city after taking the required
permissions. Rabindranath Tagore and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad were my heroes
and the spirit of national pride was running high, so we were all enthused.
The location of these performances also
included railway stations and to my horror my own locality. Why horror? Because
one of my dialogues as the soul to the common man was ‘Main tumhari atma hoon’ meaning ‘I am your soul’. And I just had the feeling that I would not hear the end of it. As I'd expected, ever after our performance, whenever I passed any group on a street corner, I was heckled
with that dialogue! I had to stifle mad giggles every time I heard it for fear of encouraging them and made my exit as
soon as possible.
The performance cured any acting bug I had. My
inhibitions preferred to stay close to me plus I was also not a fan of reliving
unpleasant memories for the sake of ‘acting’. However, those performances brought a
high that resounds years later... watching people gather in public places as we sang patriotic songs to
draw crowds before a performance... watching those crowds grow bigger, pulled by what
he had to say through our piece and then the thundering applause after it was
over... the spirit of cheer and optimism rode high, among us and the audience.
Dad recently reminded me that we had performed many dances
during events to mark the celebration. However, I don’t remember that. All I
remember of the 50 years celebration is Disha, Atma, Anjum, our encouraging families, the actors who
performed with me, Rajan, Rajesh, Sanjay and the friendships that were formed. :)
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