“Unsuni…Unheard Voices”
On the 25th of June, I went to IIM-B to see “Unsuni”, a musical (for want of a better word; it was a play/dance/music, all combined) by Mallika Sarabhai for the Darpana Academy.
The play was about the way we make some of our brothers and sisters do our dirty work, quite literally; we make them scavengers, who clean nightsoil; and then we marginalize them as unclean. The play was moving and rousing by turns, and at the end, Mallika addressed the audience for feedback.
The audience, indeed, was pretty special; it consisted of the new batch of PGP students ot IIM-Banglaore. So Mallika had a very receptive audience to pitch her message of “Let’s integrate everyone” to.
One young man, who, in spite of being physically challenged, had made it to IIM, got up to speak and was cheered to the echo!
It was heartening to see the spirit of “let’s do it” that permeated the auditorium; let’s hope that the spirit translates into real action in the outside world!
Darpana will be performing this play/musical in other parts of Bangalore; do catch it if you can!
It is nice to sit in an auditorium and watch a play “enacted” by those, who are not really what they portray and we, as audience going through a range of emotions from moist eyes to cheering loudly by clapping on every occasion possible, with the gush of feeling, that, there is an iota of goodness within us and around us.
But it is a completely different thing to translate it into action. Every one including the artists who enact these plays, would, in a real situation find it difficult to practice these “right” things/messages they try to convey in these plays. However sad, I’m no exception to this. It is when i ponder over these, i realize how a few remarkable people like Gandhi and countless other people over the ages, have “practiced” more than they “preached”. And it is exactly this thing that separates the Truly great one’s from the rest of the mortals like me.
-Just my 2 paise
Rao.
That was very perceptive Rao! It explains why so many of the well-intentioned initiatives fizzle out; we are, simply, too busy conducting our own lives to be able to spare time and effort to better others’. Indeed, that is the difference between people like us and the really great people…
But then, also remember that it has not always been easy to live with some of those really great people! I had a cousin who was a Communist and kept rushing off to fight ideological battles; when his widowed mother asked for some help, he brusquely told her, you have other relatives who will help you, the poor have nobody! Which may be true, but the lady didn’t find that response a very good one! She didn’t like asking the relatives for help when her own son would not help her..and wound up doing a lot of difficult things alone.