Play highlights struggles of women
Amritsar, April 1
A story that sounds quite familiar yet hauntingly new every time you watch it onstage, Vijay Tendulkar’s play ‘Baby’ has been adapted for theatre multiple times. This time, Alfaz Theatre’s Mandeep Ghai, an actor-director from city, along with technical director Jaswant Mintoo, presented the play with some Punjabi context. Staged at Punjab Naatshala, Baby is a story of a woman, who works as an extra in films. She lives for her brother, who is in an mental asylum and is dependent on her.
While Baby works hard to earn a livelihood, making her way through the workbased harassment and politics, she also finds an adversary in a local goon, Shivappa, who exploits her and orders her around, like a plaything. A helpless and seemingly weak Baby endures it all, as Shivappa harasses her brother and also puts him behind bars to intimidate her, her only solace is in books.
One day the baby’s brother Raghav escapes from the madhouse and comes back and after that both the siblings decide to take their life situation head on. The situation goes out of control with the arrival of a person named Karve in Baby’s life. The baby’s desire to live an independent life brings her to crossroads.
Enacted by Jaswant Mintu, Mandeep Ghai, Vikas Joshi, Amandeep Singh, Gayatri, Sanyam, the play was narrated with underlying themes of prevailing misogynist work culture, the exploitation of the weak and power play in a woman’s life.
This staging was a presentation of Delhi Sangeet Natak Akademi in collaboration with Alfaz Theatre. Mandeep Ghai, who has earlier been part of acclaimed production by Naatshala, Kudessan, said that Baby is a reflection of how most women, who do not live a sheltered life, survive in a brutal world where single, independent women are looked down upon and vulnerable to exploitation.
