The Hindu : New Delhi News : A feminist voice speaks out from the margins

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Wednesday, Sep 13, 2006
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New Delhi

A feminist voice speaks out from the margins

MARGINAL NO MORE: "Margins", a thought-provoking play by the `Pandies' theatre group, at the Oxford Bookstore in New Delhi. Photo: V. V. Krishnan

As a part of Oxford Bookstore's Dialogue Club initiative, the Pandies -- a feminist theatre group -- presented a thought-provoking play, "Margins", in the Capital on Tuesday.

Essentially dealing with the biases that prevail in Indian society and how people fight the odds and rise above all challenges, the play is the coming together of two short scripts linked in their critique of our State and society.

Two plots

The first plot in the play was based in Delhi and centred round a lower middle class Muslim family, while the second plot, leaning on archetypal Dalit autobiographies, constructed another story though from a different perspective.

It juxtaposed caste and gender. Hidden within a sceptical anti-Brahminical cover was the question whether gender transcends caste.

Committed to staging plays relevant to the country's ethos and time, the Pandies group began as an English theatre movement performing the bulk of its plays in the proscenium and established its niche in that slot.

From 1996, the group assumed the role of a campaigner, making projects on issues rather than simply staging plays.

Today, apart from one or two productions in commercial auditoriums every year, the group covers diverse slums, bastis, schools and colleges.

The issues revolve round women because the group believes that if society is to head anywhere, it has to become more women-oriented and women-friendly.

Varied issues

Every year the group picks a topic like prostitution, HIV, Mental Health Act and institutions of marriage and works on it.

Dialogue Club is a monthly initiative of Oxford Bookstore to create a platform for theatre-lovers to perform and discuss various faces of contemporary theatre.

It aims to bring together the stalwarts of the theatre world with amateurs to encourage exchange of ideas. - Madhur Tankha .

- Madhur Tankha .

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