A park that unfolds a deeper social dilemma

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The Jashne-Juban festival at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi featured the play Gandhi Park directed by JNU alumnus Tarique Hameed at the social sciences auditorium. The work is based upon Manav

Kaul’s Hindi play Park as translated in Urdu by Gufram Naghib. Three men in a park on an afternoon fight over their rights on three benches. Childish arguments reveal the extent of the pettiness of each claimant to his domain.
The first person to enter the park is Uday, a complex case of psychic fears and notions, he is afraid he is going to die and is whiling away his time till his appointment with the doctor.
The second entrant, Nawaz, is looking for a shady spot to ease his heavy afternoon meal, or so it appears. The only bench with some shade is occupied by Uday who is rudely shunted off to another bench.
Whilst Nawaz is snoring a third man, Madan, comes into the park. Madan, a music teacher with RSS leanings, wants the space occupied by Uday who is in no mood to shift. Apparently Madan spends the hours in the park gazing at a nearby building terrace to catch a sight of a female colleague and she is only visible from that particular bench.
During the course of the play. the bench becomes a symbol of territory which is occupied through sheer power, in the name of need, or by hook or by crook. Gradually, the other two men are also revealed. Of Uday we know from his direct statements to the audience, but of the other two we know only by appearances.
Nawaz is a beefy, rustic looking man and father of the young boy Hussain. We see Hussain dancing at the start of the play.
Scared after seeing Uday he almost runs away from the park. But not before he tells him his name and the fact that he is hiding from his father because he is going to fail his Class 5 exams for the third time. Why is he so sure, asks Uday?. “Because I did not take the exam, I do not want to study I just like to dance,” says Hussain.
Nawaz has come to the park to sleep off the tedious hours before his son’s result comes out. He has done everything to ensure Hussain passes his exams. He does not want his son to become a good-for-nothing dancer.
Uday, pensive and feeling the burden of truth on him, explains to Nawaz that it is wrong to thwart natural talent. And that his son will be miserable if he does not dance.
Madan is a bespectacled lanky young man wearing a saffron-coloured long kurta. He is the object of ridicule and disgust of both men. They cannot imagine a man being a voyeur with his own colleague. They ask him why he does this. The young man explains that the woman is a snob and does not speak properly to anyone. Therefore, he wants to put her down.
They ask him if that was the only way of showing he her mistake? He realises his error and leaves the Park, which Uday declares is Gandhi Park.
Nawaz too realises that he was being too harsh with his son and detaches Hussain from his arms, symbolically freeing him.
Uday, after having these encounters, realises people have more serious problems than he does. He no longer wants to wait for the woman doctor with whom he thinks he has fallen in love with and leaves the park.
When she comes to the park looking for him she finds the debris of the games the young men played. She leaves with smile on her face.
The director in his note is optimistic in the thematic aspects of the play to be interpreted on stage. To quote, “The play explores the issue of eventual displacement of human beings due to socio-economic, socio-political and cultural reasons, the issue of identity and the sense of belonging.”
The play initiates a debate over these issues in the light of several examples from around the world. The play also takes a dig at the normative rules people adhere in order to be accepted by the society and often forget to reflect upon their consciousness. Is the mark of all these issues tied to questions of caste, region and religion or is it something ephemeral?
One wishes the director and he actors could have together thrown some light on any of these issues of philosophical and human concern through the play, but unfortunately, the cast played very superficially.
Even the dialogues that were superimposed did not have the strength to make a difference to a basically innocuous script.
The staging of the play could have been more imaginative. There are better ways of depicting a park than lining all the walls with money plant trailers. The background design was very distracting as it was lit up all the while. Some sort of lighting design could have been employed to promote the drama.
The actors all seemed to be new, except perhaps Raj Kumar, who as Nawaz was comfortable on stage.
The production company WINGS Cultural Society has been in existence for a while. It had very little to show in the matter of experience.