Love in the time of hate: Vijay Tendulkar’s MitrachiGosht has a Kannada rendition
BENGALURU: At a time when the LGBTQ community is struggling for acceptance, Ondu Preetiya Kathe..! by director Venkatesh Prasad throws light on the emotional trauma that same-sex couples go through. Based on Vijay Tendulkar’s MitrachiGosht, the play has been translated into Kannada by Prasad who doubles as the director as well.
“It is appalling how the main stream entertainment has used homosexuality as a matter of humour and has portrayed the homosexuals either comically or in negative roles. Through this play, we seek to look not into the physical relationship of two women but the emotional trauma that they go through because of the society around them,” he says.
The 110-minute play is the story of a young girl, Preethi, her journey to self-discovery and coming-out story. The play, set in a college, focuses primarily on Preethi’s love affair, but is narrated through the eyes of her friend, Ajay, the central character.
Their friendship goes through a succession of quick, dramatic growth spurts that reveal the complexity of friendship and show that Ajay ultimately comes to represent a homophobic society that keeps its blinders on to naturalise straight relationships as the norm.
The gradual unravelling of her sexuality, her confusion regarding her sexual identity, her violent attraction towards her love and the blossoming friendship between her and a male friend, form the central points of the play.
"Though the ways of expressions of love have been changing with times, somehow the prejudice associated with ‘love’ has not changed much. One of the many prejudices about love is that, only the love between a male and a female is natural and any other form of love is abnormal. The idea of reproduction being the sole outcome of love has left us today with the idea of ‘abnormality’ about anything that does not result in reproduction. The religious and fundamentalist ideas have only strengthened this misconception and have reduced ‘love’ between two individuals of same gender a taboo," he says, adding the moral framework, social restrictions and structures of the ‘civilized world’ exist towards love and it is only ironical, that the modern world allows public display of hate, anger and jealousy but not love.
The play will be staged on Jan 31, at 7.30 pm, Ranga Shankara.