A shared Reality

A poster of Wilson Chi Goshta

Kaustubh Bankapure held a reading of his play Wilson Chi Goshta at his apartment in a complex situated off Sinhagad Road in Pune, where he had recently moved. The play, besides dealing with its protagonist Wilson and the life-threatening disease he’s been afflicted by, culminates into him finding redemption in dedicating himself to cleansing a stream that flows behind his house. The concept had occurred to him about a decade ago, and he had done something adventurous with its treatment.
To figure if his experiment had worked, he sought the opinions of the audience present in his living room. A neighbour, after the session, told Bankapure of a polluted water body that flows behind their own complex; which Bankapure, having only recently shifted there, was unaware of. He realised that what he had intended as fiction is reality — not his neighbour’s and his — but of this city’s, this country’s and the world’s. And, everyone is a Wilson.
This is probably the reason why the protagonist is bereft of detailing. All we know is that Wilson is a man of about 32 years of age, with a regular job that keeps him happy, living in a house with a window, which makes for the only setting onstage. His existence established, one then sees Wilson learn he’s been afflicted by a fatal disease and that he’s left with another eight months. “One day, he stands at the window and spots the stream heaped with garbage,” says Bankapure, adding, “He decides he would dedicate the rest of his life cleaning it, irrespective of the results.”
“There is no allusion to race, caste, religion or nationality,” Bankapure adds. Even the name Wilson, he tells, was chosen to keep his identity culturally neutral. The narrative also makes Wilson’s role as a protagonist hazy. One is left wondering if the protagonist is Wilson or someone else narrating his story. All these nuances are aimed at liberating Wilson from the confines of identifiable flesh into being a formless concept.
The play has come through several stages of metamorphosis. Bankapure had first written it in 2001. “It was a one-act play then, executed by a group of 15. It involved a relatively more elaborate setting, used music and dance to convey major drifts in the story and was in entirety, well, conventional,” he says.
“In 2006, I saw a play directed by Swiss playwright-director Peter Rinderknecht, which was a solo performance. I then decided to convert my original play into a solo performance,” says Bankapure, adding, “The script was written in Hindi, as I was writing in Hindi during that phase. I later had it translated to Marathi by Shweta Kulkarni.”
While working on the new draft, Bankapure says he was reading a lot of inspirational literature. “I would come across stories wherein people would be given a certain time to live after being found terminally ill, but having dedicated themselves to something so passionately, they would go on to live much longer,” he says.
He adds, “Something similar happens with Wilson. He dedicates himself wholly to cleaning water bodies, and such is the vigour of his love for the cause that he goes on to live for 18 years as opposed to the eight months given by his doctor.”