JOIN USThespian Neelam Mansingh Chowdhry talks to Sunil Kothari about the humanistic approach she has adopted in the play, ‘The License’, which addresses a woman’s gritty fight against the conventionalities of society...
Neelam Mansingh Chowdhry and I meet after an interval of two years at Shimla. She is part of the Theatre Festival at The Gaitey Theatre in memory of late thespian Manohar Singh. It is organised by the Himachal Pradesh Tourism and Department of Language, Art and Culture, Govt. of Himachal Pradesh, in collaboration with the National School of Drama. She has presented her latest play, The License, based on Saadat Hasan Manto’s story.
Our conversation at the Marina Hotel’s spacious dining hall turns into the issue of ‘feminist approach’ adopted by Neelam in this play. She prefers not to use the word ‘feminism’, as it seems to suggest a political movement. She is interested in the interior spaces that human beings occupy — especially women. For her, it is a story about survival — human affirmation.
Neelam has indeed considered the story with strong female character, Anayat. Her tongawala husband Suraj calls her Niti. “She fights the system,” said Neelam: “Traditionally, it is men who drive tonga for a living. In this case, the husband dies and the only means of earning for the widow is through driving tonga. The poverty-stricken society and the hideous stricture of convention compel her to do a man’s job. I do not want the woman to get defeated, and her courage crumbled.”
Neelam refers to Berthold Brecht’s story, The Job. An unemployed man finds a job as a watchman in a factory in Brecht’s story. When he dies, his widow impersonates a man to keep up the job. The impact of economy that is industrialising at a fast pace is highlighted through the trials and tribulations the woman undergoes. The sudden death of the provider in both the stories drives the family to the brink of starvation. In both cases the women want to salvage the job at any cost. In The Job, the woman disguises herself, clumsily putting on men’s clothes, imitating the way he walks, adopting his ways of sitting and eating. Neelam does not want Manto’s woman to change her femininity and slip into male identity after her husband dies. She tries her best to earn her living by driving the tonga without a disguise.
Empowerment
“I need to make the story my own. The narrative does not remain according to the written text. The character has to emerge through acting, creating a situation that audiences follow and feel empathic for her,” elaborates Neelam. “She is a strong woman. Since it is considered a ‘manly activitiy’ to drive a tonga, she has to face several hurdles. Riding tongas and the nightly customers juxtaposed with the nightly rounds of the watchman in The Job are all, since time immemorial, associated with ‘the male’. For me, the crux of the story is that they rise to the occasion, and both the women are equal to the demands of their changed identity. Both of them become ‘men’ in the same way as men have become men over the millennia, through the production process.”
I question if both these feminist stories have an androgynous undertone. Since Neelam has framed against short vignettes that are written by Manto called ‘Sketches’, which draw upon the political history, against which the story has been contextualised. She agrees and draws my attention to the ironic way in which Niti, the protagonist, is challenged for not having a license to drive the tonga. The sarcasm built in suggesting her to have a license to be a member of a brothel hits one hard. She fights against it, drives her tonga with left-over luggage, her household materials, defying the social strictures. I ask her how she prepares for the play. She believes that while a play may take birth in isolation, it grows only when it is being rehearsed. She has never believed in following any theory of stage production. “I believe in improvisation. For me, it takes form only after intense conversations with the cast and crew. We often introduce new elements at every turn.”
Ramanjit, who plays the widow driving the tonga, is Neelam’s principle actor, who stuns us with her incredible energy, uninhibited sexuality, free movements and complete involvement. Neelam’s penchant for using the elements of fire, water, cooking food, creating in a trice a market place, vegetable vendors, laughter, music and songs that hint at the tragedy are all there with her signature. Ramanjit, impersonating the role of a lover, scenes of marraige and ritualistic songs create a Punjabi ambience.
On ‘Nachiketa
’We turn to other plays she has directed recently. The treatment and canvas are wide and varied. Prior to The License, she was invited in July 2012 to direct an opera called Nachiketa, in London, by Opera Circus Company. It was written by Chilean-American novelist-playwright Ariel Dorfman. She had met him at the Jaipur Literary Festival and had a four-hour meeting. Neelam works with her trusted colleagues, among whom is the designer, Sumant Jaikrishnan. She met choreographer Shobana Jeysingh for the first time for the play and also musician Nigel Osborn. Since an international cast including Lore Lixenberg, Andy Morton, Nadine Mortimer Smith, Darren Abrahams and Peter Willock was there, she has found it easy to work with them. The actors were receptive to her way of working, having been involved in a workshop with the latter before. Most of the singers were stars in their own world and absolutely professional. They were convinced about where the opera was heading.
Since Nachiketa is an Indian tale, Ariel Dorfman was confident that Neelam would be able to do justice to it. After a week-long workshop with the singers and actors, Neelam was offered to direct the production.
Nachiketa is based on the Kathopanishad. It has a philosophical dialogue with Yama, the Lord of Death. For Dorfman, the dialogue transcended geographical boundaries. He felt it had contemporary relevance. In his version, Nachiketa has a dialogue with a South African child soldier. Along with it there are also issues of child prostitution. This became part of Nachiketa’s journey to understand the world, and to be alert to its tragedies — Croatia, Bosnia, all became reference points. There was South American magic realism that Neelam liked as a collage. But she felt that the production was a Western story. Something like a blend of mythology and local histories.
The work was still in progress and was shown informally in London at Jerwood Studio for potential funder, festival directors and supporters of the Opera on the October 26, 2013
How has her experience been working on such a production? “Naturally, at times, the actors were not convinced with some of the exercises I prescribed,” Neelam explains. “But with patience, they all came round, and we could work harmoniously, though the experience for me was dramatic. It indeed was an alien territory for me. I had to see that the singers inflected dramatic modulation. Having learnt how to read music and gaining knowledge of Western musical instruments, I felt confident. Dorfman’s libretto was inspired by real-life events and his own experiences of a life in exile. Of course, it was a challenge to bring it on stage!” she adds.
Did she think that after creating several path-breaking productions, including Nagamandala, Yerma, Kitchen Katha, The Suit, Nachiketa is ‘a big leap’? “No,” says Neelam, but she agrees that this has been “the biggest canvas” she has so far worked on.Neelam’s real interest and strength lie in Punjab’s very own ‘Naqqal’ tradition. She had found out that most training methods available for the urban actor in India were based on Western systems. She found the vocabulary and tools to not only train urban actors, but also to reach out to rural audiences. “I got a theatrical language where unusual encounters happen.
For me, for instance, in Kitchen Katha, which had live musicians, and food was being prepared and served to the audience, contemporary issues such as women’s empowerment were being staged.” Neelam says with conviction: “It is emblematic of this tradition.”