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Journalism of Courage
Why do we always want something we don8217;t have, and want to do away with what we8217;ve already got? Why do we have so many dilemmas and why are we so restless?quot; These were the questions that haunted theatre and film actor Sayaji Shinde four years ago while he was rehearsing for the play Natarang. quot;That play had run into problems due to various reasons. Late one night, when I got home from the rehearsal, I kept thinking about how I was getting caught in the rut,quot; he remembers.pOn a sudden impulse, he picked up his pen, dug out a notebook and started writing. While he still didn8217;t have any answers when he put his pen down the next night, he found himself the author of a 37-page text. quot;I couldn8217;t figure out what I8217;d written a poem, a play or an autobiography. I read it out to a few friends. It was Shanta Gokhale who told me that perhaps this was the culmination of thought that had been buried inside for a long time. It may have been a subconscious act, but it was also deliberate,quot; he says.
Much later,these notes to himself took the form of a two-act play, or an almost two-hour long soliloquy called Tumbara. Surprisingly, Shinde says he didn8217;t change a single word from the original text it wasn8217;t necessary.
Tumbara is about a nameless man from a village who comes to the city, and his equation with nature intertwined with the nature of man. And while it seems like a collage of episodes, each passage is a complete story or poem in itself. The play has a logical emotional progression. Shinde has drawnheavily from his childhood in a small village near Satara, where he used to rear cattle and go off into the woods to catch bees. quot;I was scared of the tigers in the jungle, but still chased the insect. Now, that fear of the beast and fascination with the bee has taken a different meaning 8212; don8217;t run after this bee illusion or it might just start chasing you,quot; he says.
The play is also about how an individual8217;s perspective changes with his circumstances and the passage of time. quot;Like his description of his imaginary lady love in the first act it is outrageous, wild, alive and dreamy,quot; he says. But in the second act, reality kicks in. quot;Now he wants a wife who can also be a girlfriend. He even says something like, If the model is good, then one on resale will also do8217;.quot;
Natural elements take the form of characters and he talks to them like they were of his own lot air, sunlight, rain, clouds, rainbows, trees, honey combs. And with the change in the setting and language in the second half, a gas stove,vehicles, mass of people, become his fellow characters.
quot;I keep moving back and forth there are references to the city in the first act and I8217;m still talking about the village in the second,quot; he says.
While Shinde, the author, seems quite pleased with his effort, the actor in him still falls short of his own expectations. quot;In most plays you have two or three powerful scenes where you can let yourself go and showcase your talent. But here, every moment on stage is a big challenge, because you have to mouth one difficult passage after another, with hardly enough time to breathe,quot; he says. And although director Sunil Shanbag has tried to space it out to give him enough time to recoup, he still finds it difficult to maintain the tempo through the performance. quot;Sometimes I warm up to one scene and find myself falling short in the next one,quot; he says.
But unlike other plays, the onus is as much on the audience as it is on Shinde because the soul of Tumbara lies in the words. quot;People cannot sit back andrelax like they8217;d do while watching a commercial comedy. They have to concentrate on what I am saying to enhance the performance,quot; he says.And neither does his audience have the comfort of a readymade conclusion.
quot;In the end, he says that he is moving at a frantic pace. But he now wants to go back to the woods and the hills. There is an end starting ahead, there is a regret to look back on. But at least now, let there be some peace8217;.quot;
At the Experimental Theatre, NCPA. On August 20 and 21, 1998. Time: 6.30 pm.
