The Father of
the Nation... a forgotten hero? This was the question which
prompted Lillete Dubey to stage a play on the Mahatma. "I
asked myself whether Gen X could identify with Gandhi. Also,
whether there is anything about Gandhi that we don't already
know. I was surprised: there is so much left to discover,"
says Lillete.
This led to Lillete's theatre group
going ahead with Sammy, a production that analyses Mohandas
the man, and the Mahatma in him. In the process, a new
interpretation of Gandhi emerged.
A tool that the play uses to bring out
the real Gandhi is dialogues between Mohandas and the Mahatma.
"Mohandas was a regular guy, what made him the Mahatma? In the
play, the Mahatma is an abstraction pushing the different
buttons of Mohandas, questioning him. Through this, we see how
Mohandas's mind works. For instance, after Mohandas wrote a
letter stating that India would help England in WW II, he felt
pleased thinking this tactic would help India win
independence. In the play, this is when the Mahatma pricks his
vanity."
Gandhi
apart, other frontline leaders of that time get new images
through the play. "Nehru, for instance, is shown asking Gandhi
why we can't take the same route as the Russian revolution. In
the play, Indian leaders aren't shown to be fuddy-duddy senior
citizens but young people with contemporary ideas."
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