People’s theatre

“If they cannot go to a theatre,the theatre must come to them,” says director Lokesh Jain,42,as the crowd sat around wide-eyed watching his latest offering—Gul-guli Circus. Though Jain’s plays premiere at Mandi House,theatres and schools across Delhi,he makes it a point to always schedule performances in slums of Old Delhi,“bastis” and orphanages where he can “find audiences who can relate to a play from the heart”.

Gul-guli Circus,performed by students of Deen Dayal Upadhyay College,begins with five clowns creating the world from chaos and,after a period of harmony,Man’s greed overtakes his need. Jain’s storyline explores the genesis of violence,casteism,class,discrimination,nuclear warfare and greenhouse effect and climate change—issues that appear unlikely to touch a chord with the audience who seem more concerned about their next meal.

But when the action ends,one young man pipes up: “I pull a rickshaw in the sun,get beaten up by the police and abused by the public,” he says. “Then,I go home and beat my wife,who takes it out on the child. The child then vents his anger by tearing leaves and flowers off the nearest plant. Is that why the sun seems hotter?”

Jain doesn’t always have an answer. For instance,in 2004,when he took Patri Par Bachpan,which showed vignettes of young children working in tea stalls being sodomised,harassed by the police and other real-life incidents—to parks,orphanages and other hubs of child labourers,the reaction took him by surprise. “The children in the audience just laughed through it. They were looking at their own lives,and rolling in laughter.”

Jain’s fascination with the street began long before he started professional theatre in 1996. “The first step to writing any original play starts with making a round of the streets. In India,where thousands of influences converge,I do not need to stage a Shakespeare to expose the voice of the Other. The Other is present around us on the streets of Delhi,” he says.