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Exploring M K
Gandhi
By: Shaheen Parkar
July 13, 2005
More than two
decades on, playwright Partap Sharma’s painstakingly crafted
Sammy produced and directed by Lillete Dubey (Zen Katha, 30
Days in September, Womanly Voices) is finally
floorboard-bound. Before you wonder whatever or whoever is
this Sammy that slowed Sharma’s acerbic pen to a snail’s pace,
here’s the reason — Sammy is the word that broke an empire.
The process of recreating this slice of Indian history
left Sharma flummoxed on several occasions — forcing him to
give it up.
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| Lillete Dubey’s new play Sammy delves into the
Mahatma in Gandhi | He kept it
on the backburner for 18 years looking for an answer and a
possible script to Mahatma Gandhi’s statement: I am a shadow,
the shadow of an actor.
Sammy opens in the city on
July 30.
The drama delves into the irrepressible
mischievousness of the Mahatma in Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.
Dubey says, “It is a Gandhi for our time,” as he constantly
plays with his inner and outer voice — what is morally right
and what is not.
There is that inherent theatrical
shock value as it steps into the Mahatma’s life in South
Africa laced with the happenings in India and England.
The shiploads of Narayan Swamys and Rama Swamys from
India who worked as plantation workers in South Africa had the
locals pour out colourful diatribes: “What say you son of a
Swamy rammy?” As a result, the word Swami was corrupted into
Sammy as a convenient tool to describe “those Indians” in
South Africa.
In his inimitable style, Gandhi when
called a Sammy in Durban
would smile and reply, “Heavens
be praised, I am Sammy!” He would then explain to the whites
that back home swami referred to the lord, master or guru!
The two-hour drama of Sammy takes a look at
lesser-known incidents of Gandhi’s life in South Africa. The
script is a veritable guide, which will make people learn —
and unlearn — various aspects of Indian history and yet
entertain. The cast includes stage regulars Vijay Crishna,
Denzil Smith, Zafar Karachiwalla, Anu Menon, Joy Sengupta and
Asif Beg.
They essay a bunch of actors, who end up in a
lively, heated and idealistic debate while planning a play
with two characters — Mahatma and Mohan.
Earlier,
Bangalore-based theatre director Arjun Sajnani had evinced an
interest to stage Sammy but when Rajshree Birla heard about
the script, she was keen that it should be staged in English
and later in Hindi for their Birla outfits all over the
country.
Language constraints made the Mumbai-based
Dubey’s troupe take on the play that Sharma admits is “an
extremely difficult one to stage”, as it unfolds at many
levels. The last Dubey-Sharma venture was Zen Katha, which
took on the life of Bodhi Dharma, the founder of Zen and
martial arts.
As Sharma puts it, Sammy was made
possible by reading volumes at Mani Bhavan on Laburnum
Road — Gandhi’s abode in the city. Helping Sharma were
two Gandhians — Usha Mehta and Vithalbhai Zaveri.
It
was after their demise that Sharma took it up on himself to
complete the script as a tribute to them. International
Gandhian scholar, the Germany-based Peter Ruhe, has described
the script as an outstanding, comprehensive work — something
the Mahatma himself would have liked.
You can’t forget
her
Professor by day, actor by evening
— Amee Trivedi teaches advertising at N M College and is a
prolific Gujarati theatre actress-producer as well.
Her latest Devna Didhel (written by Naushil Mehta and
directed by Umesh Parekh) had its 100th show last weekend. Not
that it is a big milestone in Gujarati theatre, with several
plays reaching the 500-show mark.
What’s interesting
here is what Trivedi, who plays a mentally challenged
pickle-maker in Devna Didhel, experiences after the drama.
Invariably, after every performance, there are a bunch of
women who want to meet her.
Not for keepsake
autographs or photos, but to relate their own soul-stirring
sagas, which they find echoed in the play. It’s one of those
characters that goes home with you after the curtains are
drawn.
Cheers!
Gujarati and especially
Marathi plays may race to their golden jubilee performances in
a matter of months — and sometimes days (with two to three
shows in a day, like Bharat Jadhav’s evergreen Sahi Re Sahi)
but for the English folks it takes years.
The
Rati Agnihotri starrer Please Divorce Me Darling, produced by
Vandana Sajnani, has its 25th show this weekend. And that’s a
cause for a big celebration. Few, very few English plays touch
the silver jubilee mark, leave alone the 100 mark even with a
star presence — reason enough to cheer. |
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