Whether a woman has a
right over her own womb or not? This is the primal question posed by this play. A
woman is widowed by dint of her bad luck. As she has an old parents-in-law she
decides to stay with in-laws to take care of them. All of
the neighbours and gang of relatives try to catch fish in troubled water. All of them try to get unseemly sexual favour from the poor widowed woman.
Mid-way of of life, if husbands leaves his still issue-less wife who has
developed a strong bond with her parents-in-law why she should be forced to
break away with the old adorable couple? The old parents-in-law are in high
need of a serving daughter-in-law and the
daughter-in-law is ready to look after them with full care and affection. What is coming in between is
the dogmatic taboos of the society which prohibits her to get pregnant of
course by some other man than her dead husband.
In the eyes of society it is only sexual relation that matters, the
genuine caring aspiration and a strong desire to fulfill the responsibilities
towards helpless old couple stand nowhere.
Though this young lady
is not only a veiled and complying woman but is a daredevil too who has guts to
get pregnant declaredly by some other man than her dead husband and yea
without marrying him. The objection raised in the village assembly is that her
acts amount to abhorred debauchery. See,
the village panchayat is not totally insensible to the needs of a young married
woman and even suggests Kuchchi to get remarried. They have perfectly no issue if the widow
remarries with a man and get pregnant by him. But here is the hitch. The moment
she marries another man she will be liable to back turn to her present helpless
parents-in-law. So, she boldly proclaims
that yes she has deliberately got inseminated by some other man. The motive behind it is that she does
not only find a successor but also enjoys the genuine pleasure of motherhood the
basic entitlement of a woman.
Now the point here is
if this five months older fetus is allowed to come into this world how he can
inherit the considerable property of the widow from the side of her dead
husband. Clearly this child would not be
a legitimate one and definitely not of the man from whom the property is coming
to her. One member of the village
panchayat suggests her to go to the legal route of adoption of child. Now the
problem here is how can a woman adopt a child who is already hers. Oh, this trail of legality is nothing more
than a cobweb from where you never find a solution but only end up getting
entangled more and more. Then
the bold Kuchchi finds no answer and says that she would pray to the government to allow
a woman to get full right for her progeny from other man on the property of her
previous and dead husband.
Samta Roy in the role
of Kuchchi was very measured as far as acting is concerned. She looked like an unfashioned simple village
woman as well as a woman with an iron like determination and boldness in her
mind. Her impressive dialogue delivery was
matched by Arun Shadwan (Balai Kaka), Ria (Sughara Thakurain) and others. Nithish Kumar in the role of
father-in-law ad Avinash Mishra in Dhannu Kaka acted well. Ravi Kumar as
Banawari presented the mischievous image of Banawari deftly. Nilu Kumari and
Sangeeta did justice with their respective roles.
The music of Runjhun has a limited scope
which he discharged well. Raushan Kumar on lights was flawless and Malti Sharan
for make-up was impressive. Ravi Kumar was fine with set design and created a real scene of a village. Samta Ray
had directed the play and gave full chance to villagers to deliver their pieces
with full exposure. She was able in ensuring that the dialogue delivery are in a manner that maintains the tempo and interactivity among the successive delivery from different actors. And as a whole the
show was won by the writer who had come
up with many unheard though very pertinent issues about the rights of a woman.
Definitely this show relied much upon a theme of legal lacuna but yea that was the purpose of it.
.............
Review by - Hemant Das 'Him'
Photographs by - Rajesh
Send your response through email- editorbiharidhamaka@yahoo.com
E-mail of the reviewer- hemantdas_2001@yahoo.com
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