Makrand Deshpande’s KAVITA BHAAG GAYI, begins as dramatically as they always do when he writes them. Poet Shankar (Yashpal Sharma) is brooding over glistening blank pages and pacing the stage with heightened fear. He is at a loss for words after witnessing a harsh ‘language identity’ incident on Juhu beach.
His very vibrant fiancée played by Divya Jagdale, bursts in to take stock of his nervous condition only to discover that his poem has ‘changed its language’ out of fear. Together then, they embark on a journey to look for meaning in life and poetry.
Despite the incessant distractive rambling about serpents, the moon and yoga, the relevance of the symbology used, is hard to miss in the context. Without rhetoric the most poignant question is posed. What do they seek to change when they talk of language? Is it merely words or the entire ethic of freedom and communication? A rose is a rose by any other name, but is it still my rose? Makrand does not say as much but a flutter of thoughts is beginning to take wings even before the lights go off to bring scene 2 in.
The plot may be linear, but it is as abstract and quirky as Makrand hasn’t been for a while. The writing incorporates his favourite threads- mythology and man-woman relationships and bears proof of his ability to turn even a philosophical introspection into a pulsing thriller (even if with the aid of a corny background score). There is also a central grouse on the dumbification, commercialization etc. of the media, the most popular ‘issue’ with all sorts of conscientious people nowadays. The dialogue begins to come unstuck at points, but Makrand has a line or two of poetry lined up to fire the prose every time you are tempted to look away.
There are a whole lot of socio-political concerns thrown in towards the middle and the hyper-talk seriously threatens a couple of well-made points. It is only Makrand’s arsenal of symbolism that really saves him. The metaphors of language and poetry are chased by the legend of Ashwaththaama. He appears to talk about his wound - that curse from the Gods, and shakes up a sleepy epic to shower the most refreshing takes on contemporary life and the eternal state of man. Even when he is subjected to the ordinary cliché of television manipulation his own speak shines through to those who will care to look through abstraction that is beginning to charade itself as OTT silliness. “Where there is pain, there is me”, echoes the sage, linking a history of strife to our own disconcerting times.
At this point Makrand is addressing a state of affairs in general (encompassing terrorism, riots, suicides and every other disturbance in the news) as opposed to his more pointed petition against language politics in the beginning. And haunting as the legend may be in his bringing together the extraordinary tragedies of human life, it reduces the play to a purely personal lament.
The aesthetic of design again is typically Makrand, with a couple of interesting touches, but lacks the verve to match step with his dramatics this time. Makrand is a writer of ideas and they are often hard hitting even if predictable. As a director he has not revised his technique much but his pulse on drama might just have been the birthplace of the entire current crop of soap operas, which ironically also makes his style look more dated. But when one is speaking about political issues, one is doing more than expressing personal concern, they are in some way seeking to influence opinion or at least start a process of questioning among the receivers. If the aim is greater than the art, propaganda takes shape. Makrand clearly keeps his work at the level of personal art but it is not clear if he strikes the right balance between intellectual and emotional musing, which is perhaps the key to getting through and staying on with an audience over any issue.
Nivedita Bhattacharya as a thick-skinned Journalist and Jagdale turn in fine performances; but they are written as caricatures, and the way in which the two women constantly challenge sensibility begins to smell faintly of misogyny. Of course this is probably entirely unintentional but then this sort of thing usually is. Pointed discrimination is not easy to spot in the upper layers of consciousness in the city.
Makrand is charismatic as Ashwaththama and Sharma a ‘good’ actor by the book, believable and immensely watchable too. The most significant thing however, is that Makrand is slowly opening up to the politicization of his art which has otherwise always been for its own sake. It is important that he is responding to the times with a sweep at political apathy and rising above neutral humanistic concerns by making a case for a ‘this-concerns-everyone’ mentality towards political maneuvers. This is special at a time when most artists are joining citizens to light candles without wondering if they may have a more powerful tool to shape the society in their art.
Even though his play does not name an MNS or a certain Raj, he clearly uses his podium to say that this kind of language politics done in the name of a community he belongs to does not represent him. This is crucial because despite voices of sanity from all over, the ones that will matter the most will be from those whose ‘pretext’ is being peddled by an ill meaning self-servant. Makrand has been defying such petty attempts at constriction for as long as he has been around albeit in subtler ways by writing better Hindi than most of us can comprehend. But this time he is acting and speaking out - loudly reclaiming the entire repertoire of vocabulary in his country.
The play looses its way now and then but manages to reach a worthy enough culmination in yet another metaphor- a work of art that is incomplete such that the reader may fill it with his own thoughts and create his own monument of truth. Much like the finale of this journey, one can only hope that his art will coax his audience to write their own poems. For every petition against injustice is poetry.
The writer spends most of her time walking through the fields of law to gather food. She understands theatre because her life is dramatic, striving to rise above cliches and threatened by the lack of adequate sponsorship. In efforts to prioritize, she survived theatre a couple of times but has had a fatal relapse. She will be survived by theatre.
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