Roshni to throw light on concept of gender equality: Amita Sharma

Neha Saini

Tribune News Service

amritsar, July 6

“Being a woman has always been a subject of great debate, whether its in the matter of her social rights and standing or about her struggles of being a female voice in the male-dominated society. We have always been judged, scrutinised and cautioned, all in the name of traditions and culture.” Young theatre actor and director Amita Sharma briefs about the purpose of her play in these few words. The National School of Drama graduate will be staging her first directorial play Roshni based on popular and feisty urdu writer Ismat Chugtai’s biographical writings and stories.

Greatly influenced by the liberal views on gender discrimination and social imbalance, Amita’s play is a part of her fellowship project that she began at NSD under the guidance of celebrated theatre stalwart and teacher Tripurari Sharma. do not consider myself a director, in fact, I wanted to play the titular character of ISmat Chugtai myself. But due to certain circumstances, I decided to direct the play. I have extensively read Ismat Chigtai’s work like ‘Kaagazi hain Parihan and have been working on this concept for two years. She was not a feminist or a social activist rather she was a writer, who found inspiration in her own life, her own struggles to get an education and live life on her own terms when most girls were expected to just get married and make a family,” says Amita.

The play picks up pieces from Ismat Chugtai’s autobiographical account and also features her story ‘Do Haath’. One of the few women theatre actors from city, Amita says that the issues highlighted in the play find relevance in every possible manner today. “Whether it’s a girl’s education, female feoticide, dowry or gender equality, all these issues are still reduced to mere dialogue and not action. Gender discrimination is deeply rooted in our DNA and being male has always been considered some kind of a ‘privilege’ in society.”

All for women empowerment, she still doesn’t believe in all the talk around feminism, “We still believe that feminism is about proving women superior to men, which loses the purpose as gender equality is about both being important. If we start teaching our sons that they are not ‘priviledged’ ones, the difference could be made. Empowering one, without focusing on the other is not going to work.” Amita aims to do more than breakthrough theatre and not stick to clichs and commercial concepts of entertainment that are slowly seeping in on stage.

The play has been scripted by Rajender Singh and will be staged at Punjab Naatshala in collaboration with the National School of Drama. .