KOCHI: Quasar Thakore Padamsee, the son of the late advertising legend Alyque Padamsee and renowned stage actor Dolly Thakore, brings an English play to the city called ‘A peasant of El Salvador’. This is a funny and heart-warming story of a hill farmer and his family against the backdrop of the civil unrest of the 1970s in El Salvador.
Three narrators take you on an exotic journey through the mountains and plains of Central America as they tell us the story of a simple peasant with a big family, a big heart and a small piece of land.
The peasant, one of the hundreds in the same situation, silently waits for things to change in the face of a military dictatorship, sweeping land reforms, death squads, guerrilla warfare and unprecedented repression. After years of patiently accepting his destiny, he finds his voice at a historical event that shook the world.
Quasar chanced upon this play a few years back. “We decided to open it in September 2013,” says Quasar, who runs the theatre group, QTP. “I felt that the agrarian economy/society in India was only a few years away from the kind of chaos and anarchy that the peasants in El Salvador had to face. The violence has been turned inward in India and there are countless instances of farmers committing suicide due to the changing economics and facing the loss of ancestral land and subsequent bankruptcy.”
Quasar says that GM crops are on the rise and with very corrupt and short-sighted government officials who are in collusion with the multinationals, rural development in India is ad hoc and unmindful of its effects on India’s citizens, the economy and environment. “People must start questioning the price we are paying for globalisation and personal profits.,” says Quasar. The play will be performed on Sunday at JT Pac at 6:45 pm. The duration is 80 minutes (without interval). Tickets are available on BookMyShow and also at the venue. For enquiries and reservations, call 8086881681/9349528057.