By Geetika Jain

These days my newly discovered passion for theatre takes me to Kamani auditorium every evening. Sangeet Natak Akademi`s `Rang Swaran` festival is staging some classics from all over the country.
On Monday evening, I drove unusually fast as I thought I was late for Satya Dev Dubey`s `Insha Allah` slated for that evening. I didn`t want to miss a second of the play as a friend had highly recommended it. To my relief, I could make to the venue on time and then to my utter dismay, I discovered that Dubey`s play was second in line and before that a Manipuri play was to be staged.
I was disappointed as I don`t understand the language and there was no Manipuri friend around to help me to decipher what was happening. I decided that now that I have come, I should attend it anyway. Moreover, I had to wait for Dubey`s screening.
Initially, all I could make of what was going on the stage was that there were two mythological figures dressed in interesting attire. A man was standing on a higher dais and moving his body in a horrifying way. The woman was on the lower dais and her expressions revealed that she was in deep pain. The words they uttered were beyond me, so I tried to concentrate on her expressions. The play had loud music playing in the background and was action-oriented. The best way to describe that woman`s movements is to call them the `Dance of Agony`. Then, I heard something like `Agni Pariksha` in their conversation, so I guessed that it was a version of that event in mythology, which symbolises the eternal misery of women.
In the next scene, time moves centuries ahead and a modern woman, most probably an aspiring model or actress is shown being exploited by two men, supposedly art directors. Here the dialogues were half in English, so I could understand a bit. The woman refuses to expose her body and entertain them and is therefore rejected by the two men disgracefully.
In the last scene, which was most heart-rending, a poor woman of some remote north-eastern village is being exploited by jawans of security forces. She is gang-raped brutally and thereafter left to her fate. The scene depicts the human rights abuse faced by innocents in north-eastern areas as part of anti-insurgency operations. More so by women!
The play made me sit up and take notice. What I had thought I was stuck with, in fact turned out to be an education of sorts. The suffering of women at the hands of society, men and circumstances cuts across spatio-temporal barriers.
Be it Sita from mythology, or the modern contemporary woman, or the naive village woman, all are subject to the torment of their surroundings. Some endured it, a few revolted and the rest died unheard.
But where does it take me or for that matter anyone? Just a jerky reminder of what women have gone through or are going through.
The impression is deep and indelible. What followed was Satya Dev Dubey`s `Insha Allah` packed with dialogues and rhetoric. And this was in a language that I understood. Yet when I left the auditorium, all that I was thinking of was that Manipuri play. `Insha Allah` was lost on me.
What was lingering was not just the powerful message of the plight of women through the ages but about how unessential language is for communication. There is often a lot more said without words than with them.