‘Kharashien’ depicts pain, fear of communal violence

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, March 3

Artistes of a Jammu-based theatre group, Pancham, gave an emotional performance through ‘Kharashien’, Gulzar’s short stories and verses, during the Nutan International Theatre Festival at Virsa Vihar here on Tuesday. The audience related the play, directed by Bhupinder Singh Jamwal, to the Delhi riots.

A compilation of four stories, ‘Kharashien’ began with Hilsa, a story of a Bengali couple, who is cleaning Hilsa for lunch as they represent the silent onlookers of riots. The husband simultaneously reads out loud a story of a pregnant woman being killed in the riots.

The second story, ‘Raavi Paar’, is probably one of the most painful and brutal stories of human tragedy during the Partition in literature. The story of a Sikh couple escaping rioters with their two kids evoked pain and horror as one moved towards climax. In the madness that communal riots during the time unleashed, the father throws his alive kid into the Ravi river, thinking that he is dead, while his wife cradles the dead one, confusing him to be alive.

‘Khauf’, another portrayal of panic and fear that riots create, is a story of a man trying to hide from a fellow passenger, thinking that he will be killed due to his religious identity.

The terror that the person experiences throughout his journey to reach his home safe and the scars that riots leave on one’s psyche left something to ponder over for the audience at large.

The last story, ‘Khuda Hafiz’, depicts relationship between two individuals, irrespective of their religious identities, in a riot-inflicted situation. While each is fearful towards the other and consistently asks for their religion, the two eventually become victims of the common enemy — communal hate.