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Photo: Shiv Kumar Pushpakar

NOT DRAMATIC A scene from “The Silent Front”

“The Silent Front” is a poignant script of the sacrifices that, not only soldiers, but the family of soldiers are forced to make. A gravitas is added to it as it was originally conceived by Col. Vasanth V, Ashok Chakra (Posthumous). He suggested to his Bharatnatyam dancer wife Subhashini, to tell the story of an army wife. Col. Vasanth was killed, while leading an operation near Uri. This was three days after the script of the play was completed. Subhashni is the main actor and as Asha plays the role of a daughter, wife and mother to an army officer. When a war widow plays the role of an actor receiving the news of her husband’s death on stage, that’s where theatre and reality merge poignantly, and unnervingly into one.

Using slides and snapshots reality is projected onto the stage. Be it scenes of the Kargil assault or snapshots of families being awarded for their husbands’ or sons’ valour.

Conceived as it is by an army officer, the play is realistic and not dramatic. It doesn’t use grand protestations or bloody scenes. Just returning from a post an army officer doesn’t talk about the horrors of war. Instead, he recounts, “At the post our favourite pastime is playing antakshari across the border.”

It creates love and death through genuine and tender relationships. Through humour poignant moments are created. Asked to go to sleep, a young son pleads, “but if I go to sleep, father will go away.”

It shows how departure, and even the possibility of death, lurk around the domesticity of army officers’ families. Dances at the club are interrupted by departures to war. Group meetings are shattered by the news of death.

Spanning three generations, it moves from the pre-Independence era to the Kargil War.

Leaving for the 1942 war Asha’s father asks his wife, what she will do if anything happened to him. She replies immediately and stoically, “Mai sab kuch sambhal lungi.” When Asha’s husband returns from the front, she indulgently complains about being alone. She has to manage everything single headedly. Asha’s son’s fiancé, Ayna, struggles with her own questions.

“I can’t handle a life of anticipation and loneliness,” she says, adding, “I don’t want my marriage at the risk of a bullet.” Asha, on the other hand, believes that for freedom we can make a few sacrifices.

The play raises these personal debates. It illustrates the difference between duty and a job. It shows how personal sacrifices have to be made for a national gain. It reveals the true meaning of sacrifice. It displays the fortitude of individuals and the triumph of faith.

This three act play by Army Wives Welfare Association is dedicated to the cause of Veer Naris, the widows of the army.

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