about charandas today

an image which reveals

my theatre production's

nature.

Charandas today is a conflict

resolution text written by me adapted

from Veteran theatre director

Habeeb Tanveer's production,

Charandas Chor.

The play is an adaptation of Charandas Chor written and directed by Late Shree Habib Tanveer.
A conflict resolution text based on the theme of voice, questions why altering points of view are resisted in form of bans, which are led on several films, books and plays.

Charandas Chor was banned on 8^th July 2009, led by the Chhattisgarh state government, on the grounds that the word Ghasidas used for the Guru, was considered offensive by the current Satnami community.

The ban is used as a starting point to seek an answer to the larger question: why are voices suppressed? Is there any way in which they can be expressed and listened to? Is their space for such voices?

In Charandas Chor, Charandas meets death as he fulfills vows he had given to Guruji. He has promised that he would never lie, and the virtue itself becomes a reason for his death.

Charandas comes back today and meets the people he had lived with. The woman he had tried to rob off her jewellery has been harassed by a group of men who try to molest her. She is in a dilemma of her own sorts, whether she should make noise, rooted in past experiences of her own and those of other people, thus fearing the consequences.

She runs into Charandas and shares her fears.

What would Guruji’s conflict be like when he meets Charandas again? After Charandas’ death
would he wish that had he not given Charandas vows of not marrying the queen, of not eating from the golden plate, of not attending the royal procession, Charandas would have led a better life?

Havaldar has come around too and he has remained the same unlike Guruji, who has changed and become a residual of questions he has asked himself, after listening of Charandas’ death.

The work further explores whether while change is constant, does what matter the most ever change?

Charandas was killed in Habib Tanvir’s play and today, he fades in a more subtle way, through the ban.
What if there is no answer?