Role of a lifetime...
The English department of the Mumbai University was hosting an international seminar on ‘Resistance literature’. And for the cultural events on the fourth day we decided to do a poetic drama titled CRACKED IMAGES, FROZEN FRAMES (first read at Prithivi Theatre –Mumbai on 6th March 2000) by one of our own professor Dr.Sridhar Rajeswaran. I was asked to choose a role and out of the three characters- doctor, patient and companion –I opted for the companion. And then we started to read out the lines for the very first time.
Here goes some of my lines ;)
“Do something!
Open your f***ing eyes
I cannot cope with your being like this
I left you all right
But did you not deserve it?
You drove me to it.
You and your racing
Your car hurtling downhill as though to break the sound barrier…..”
..............................
…..“You and your flashes of brilliance.
Epileptic discharge of mutilated cells
Self-titillating intellectual
Masturbating passionate living
With angels in the void of a library
At least they are all dead.”
......................................
…..“You know well why I stopped
The sexual and the political are so commingled
By the fact of our very existence
Bodily time is species time
The sexual and the political
Are they not part of body processes?
Is not private and public spaces intertwined?
Break your old icons
Of virgin mother and nurturing whores.”
.......................
We started discussing whether we still need a kind of 'radical feminism’ in the world today. Two opposing views emerged. One side arguing that ‘radical feminism’ was the need of the hour at the first stage of the feminist movement to get quick attention and today we no longer require it. The other side pointing out that history is not monolithic and there are multiple histories and today at many places we still require some kind of active radical feminism to change things.
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