Hukkeri Balappa sings butti togonda hoagtini hola’ka (I’m off to the farm with a packed lunch) through an old, reedy record – and it is still only after the second bell. The music, which is of a time and space whose identity is undergoing a fast metamorphosis, sets the mood for a regional encounter with a global phenomenon. The underside of ‘development’ and economic change, urban migration is a contemporary reality that has little representation in popular culture. Raghavendra Acharya’s first play and Basav Biradar’s directorial debut, Basava Express brings this phenomenon out of the precincts of data and statistics and presents it as a beautifully crafted story of longing and loss.
Shantu, an artistically gifted young man from Raichur is eking out a living by painting the glories of Karnataka’s heritage on the municipal walls of Bangalore. The demons he fights everyday – apart from poverty and hunger – are memories of his dead mother and his father he left behind over a quarrel. Basalingappa, a middle-aged man from near Hampi, works as a construction labourer in one of Bangalore’s many construction sites. He dreams of returning to his village and farming his small patch of land. His regret over the death of his son hangs over him like a shadow. Through these characters, the play tells the story of a whole class of people caught at the intersection of heavily lopsided economic policies and climate change.
The play’s strength is its exploration of ‘representation’ as a two-directional technique. ‘Representation’ can be of two kinds: 1) of the general in the particular and 2) of the particular to the general. The scene where Basalingappa, the bereaved father and Shantu, the bereft son, move from the particular to the general in their portrayal of their defeat in a race against urbanization (you can joyfully race your bicycle against the speck of an airplane in the sky, but you cannot race against the train heading to Bangalore with its cargo of labourers) and then back to the particular as individual characters with their own stories of woe, displays directorial ingenuity! The craft of representation is also seen in the set design, namely the speaking walls.
Both the walls are images of the hometowns of each of the protagonists – and Mahantesh Doddamani’s artwork creates an exact likeness to the paintings we see on Bangalore’s walls. These walls that represent the essence of the respective towns, bridge the gap between the passive set and the act: they get personified and discuss ideas of prosperity and privilege. Turns out, nothing has changed much over time apart from the ways of looking at poverty.
The light design by Partha plays a crucial part in the execution of the plot. Through the use of special filters, colours and zoning, the whole range of spaces are signified – a hut in a Raichur village, the streets of Bangalore, a shed in an urban slum. The use of a patch of light to signify a motorboat is a clever piece of technique.
Basava Express, named after an actual train that runs between Bagalkot and Mysore whose route comprises the villages of the two protagonists, is an important play as its theme is a pressing imperative of our times. In its aim to portray a serious matter, the play doesn’t fail to entertain.
The final marvel of direction is noticed at curtain call, when you realise that the feeling one had of it being a populous plot, is in fact the work of just five, very involved actors.
