When I was a pre-degree student (as twelfth graders were called then), my friends and I enacted a drama as a part of a temple festival. The show opened with a murder scene: A rather stylishly dressed man sways to the tunes of pop music around midnight. Suddenly, the lights dim and someone tears into the room and stabs the man to death. The entire story is then revealed in flash-back.
A girl was raped and murdered. The culprit (the dandy from the opening scene) was murdered too. But the police were unable to detect the rapist’s killer and so a detective was called upon to crack the case.
The sleuth is today a livestock inspector. I was the killer. The friend who played the role of the rapist-cum-murderer is a bank employee and the friend who was cast as the policeman ended up being a real-life cop!
As there were no dialogues in the first scene, it was splendidly done even though I failed to pierce the balloon filled with red coloured water that was skillfully hidden inside the dandy’s shirt. The audience was impressed. But in the scenes that followed, everybody, including the policeman, was quivering.
There was a scene in which the killer was being questioned by the policeman. While interrogating, the cop, who had a tough time trying not to shake like a Parkinson’s patient, forgot one too many of his lines and failed to ask me questions that were crucial to the plot.
In a bid to control the shaking, he tightly (and unsuccessfully) held onto his baton. Though petrified myself, I managed to deliver my lines dramatically and evoke the audience emotions. I was even applauded a couple of times. I Still I remember my best line: “A girl who belongs to a poor family was raped and killed, the police are not eager to nab the culprit, but when a rich man is murdered you are overzealous to arrest the murderer. Are you policemen or henchmen of the rich?”
When the policeman left the stage, he forgot to take his cap with him. Undecided on what to do next, I did the only thing I could think of then: I went after him with it. The laughter of the audience could be heard a mile away. The scene should have ended with the policeman handcuffing me, but he couldn’t find the handcuffs and so went into the dressing room in search of it. And to the absolute amusement of the audience, I duly followed him, misplaced cap in hand once again.
Even after he became a real cop, we would remind him of the drama, all the lines he missed and all the fun we had.
Email: lscvsuku@gmail.com