QUEEN'S ROAD: Playwright Mahesh Dattani returns to his hometown Bengaluru with a play after almost two years though he was here in December to meet his sister.
On January 30, Free Outgoing, a play written by Anupama Chandrasekhar, a Chennai-based journalist-turned-playwright, and directed by Dattani will premiere at Ranga Shankara.
The venue is very close to where Dattani once lived and he is feeling nostalgic. Over 10 years ago, interviewing Dattani in his Jaisim-designed den in JP Nagar was a leisurely experience and he remembers it well. He took you around his leafy amphitheater, gave you tea and settled next to his classic Apple iMac to chat.
He asks, "Wasn't it different? Now we have to keep time aside even for a telephonic chat."
Ask him if he misses Bengaluru in Mumbai, a city he has been living in for almost a decade now, and he says, "I have been more productive in Mumbai, but whether I have been more creative remains a big question mark. In Bengaluru, there was more mindspace and I took it for granted and I don't know if I would have been the same writer if I had grown up in Mumbai. But now even Bengaluru has changed. Like Mumbai, it is caught up in so many distractions and the person-to-person connections are diminishing. The nature of socialising and communication has changed. Yes, we have to embrace change but I feel privileged that I knew a different pace of life once."
Free Outgoing, he says, is reflective of the changes in our social structures. The play is based on how technology has made visible what was once hidden. "And in our society, anything unseen is fine but once it is out there, it becomes a morality debate, it becomes unacceptable. The play is about what happens when the social masks we wear are taken off, " says Dattani and adds that he enjoys directing the works of other playwrights.
"When I direct my own work, I become a representation of the playwright but when I take on writing that is not mine, I can step outside myself and become just the director."
Dattani feels privileged that he has been able to sustain himself across three fecund decades as a writer and says, "I don't know how that has happened. I wrote my first play in my twenties and am still writing. I think, a lot of it has been about luck but also about the fact that I am a simple person who wants to live a simple life. I have focussed on my needs rather than my wants and money has not been the primary preoccupation. That has helped. These are the choices I have made and they have served me well. To sustain yourself, you also need to trust your work and invest 100 per cent of your time and effort in it and that may not be possible for people who have families, children, spouses. I have been totally concentrated on writing. I never wanted to try different vocations."
‘I have never felt the need to censor my work’
In these 30 years, he has also seen the world grow a lot less tolerant of creative perspectives. Case in point being the recent attack on the Charlie Hebdo office. He agrees, “This is happening all over the world. I have, however, never felt the need to censor my work or voice except once when I wanted to stage a play called Sara in Mumbai. It was about a Pakistani poetess Sara Shagufta. The play was very critical of the patriarchal society in Pakistan which kept her out of mushairas (poetic gatherings), ostracised her and called her all sorts of names. It was for me, a play about a woman standing up to regimentation.”
The Shiv Sena, however, noticed just the word, ‘Pakistan’ and had strong objections to the play. “Threatening calls were made to me. I was asked, why I wanted to direct a Pakistani play and I said it was a play ‘about’ Pakistan. They had of course not read the play. There was a face-off and I said that I was not answerable to anyone about what I chose to stage. However when letters were sent to theatres with the warning that if the play was staged, the Shiv Sena would not be held responsible for the ‘consequences,’ the issue became bigger than just me answering them back. Ultimately, I could stage just two shows.”
The experience did not deter him from thinking and writing aloud. He says, “People think that the artistes are small in number and their voices and their freedom do not count. But in every society, it is artistic freedom that is taken away and targeted first and then the common man loses his civil liberties. We are living in a tenuous environment and everyone needs to defend free creative spaces.”
