ABHIJAAT JANTU Play Review

I would be hard pressed to call Premanand Gajvi's new play ABHIJAAT JANTU a political play in spite of its two nameless characters associated with Indian politics. I come from the viewpoint that just because a play has characters who are projected as being active and foremost in politics, or just because there are obvious political references through which it is easy to name the real life politicians Mr Gajvi is alluding to, it need not automatically translate into a political play. Political plays like any other genre of drama can go beyond the mere tokenism of their labels and that is when we can hope that our viewing will be enriched.

Mr Gajvi however is an astute writer who knows his craft well. But his best work is in the past. Known for socially relevant and radical plays like GHOTBHAR PAANI and KIRWANT, the veteran writer readdresses the tenacious hold of caste on the Indian society at large. In this play though it might be a bit of a stretch, considering that Indian politics and political heads even are empowered by our democracy that has allowed politics of all kinds, including caste-based to be more than active participants. Yet like Mr Gajvi I am aware that liberal democracy is more of a romantic ideal in our context, and that harsh realities of our social system are more often the norm.

So in principle I am with Mr Gajvi but what bothers me is that ridicule and satire, which abound in ABHIJAAT JANTU, lack a more studious investment. It is one thing to criticise the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) and its overriding Hindutva ideology (Mr Gajvi has found the perfect scapegoat) but it would be another thing to move beyond the obvious and the facile. Also, most of the first half of the play is taken up by a debate on sex, with character no 2 stressing that the primal instinct supersedes the human intellect.

The sex/rape discussion is brought up again in Act II as character 2 lays out to character 1 his five-point programme for their party's strategy pre-election. Audiences are likely to find resonance with the Delhi rape case that has gained nationwide attention. Mr Gajvi is in full form satirising the mythology and cultural history that the Hindutva brigade takes prides in. Much of the play is however taken up by deliberations on sex and later in the course of Act II by obvious references to the Rath Yatra, Somnath temple, the 1992 bomb blasts, Godhra in more recent history and such others that we know that the playwright has long made his point.

Yet for all purposes, the Vasantrao Achrekar Sanskrutik Pratisthan from Kankavali that has produced the play puts on a good show. Between a few raised platforms, the two actors, Sharad Savant and Vikas Tambe, representing characters 1 and 2 respectively, move energetically when the play demands. They deliver their parts well and can hold a tune. The play takes the form of a semi-musical in which dialogue is interspersed with verse played out to simple rhythms on a harmonium. Ragunath Kadam's direction ensures that the actors maintain a steady conversation and there is never a dull moment.

Mr Gajvi calls his characters 'Abhijaat Jantu' which is indicative of the creature-like instinct that even the most evolved amongst us carry deep within ourselves. There are moments in the play in which the satire cannot be missed but it is not trenchant. Besides we have heard it before and the play with its clear bias thus ends up with a strictly limited perspective on one of the nation's key parties in contemporary politics. In that it does not engage with a layered critique, and nor does it borrow more holistically from its chosen characters' biographies.

*Deepa Punjani is the Editor of this website.