Anuradha Kapur, former Director of NSD, returns to create a powerful political play with final year students

In a drain, clogged with chips packets, used condoms and unassorted garbage, a little girl’s body is dumped after she is raped and murdered. In a natural corollary, the actions that flow include her mother’s knocking on the doors of administration and the police, sounds of support all around and, ultimately, a silence amid the hushed whispers of horror. In this place, tottering between a village and town, with blink-and-you-miss appearances of water and electricity, life itches to return to the routines of survival. Except, in the play Nale Wali Ladki, which was staged by final year students of National School of Drama in Delhi, the mother is not merely grief-stricken but determined to get justice and this causes the situation that the establishment fears — disobedience.

The young cast powerfully plays out the changing dynamics between the individual and the society. Also a member of the cast and a character by itself is a printing press that becomes an ally in a woman’s quest to be heard. The performances are enabled by an innovative set by Deepan Sivaraman in which moving platforms on rails run through the performance space and transport the various scenes and elements, from a miniature model of the village-town to the printing press to the police station.

As it prints out hand bills by the the dozen, the printing press also serves to show how, in an age of forwards on social media, bits of paper pasted in public places can have a galvanising effect. Nale Wali Ladki was devised with the students, says director Anuradha Kapur, and emerged from the exploration of “possibilities on how writings on the wall, or a letter can affect one”. The play marked the return of Kapur, who was Director, NSD, until she retired, to the school to work with students. Excerpts from a conversation with her:

What was the experience of working with a new generation of students at NSD?
They were a very passionate group to work with. There was a part when I had asked them to lay this kind of life (an incident of violence towards a girl child) in their own cities and towns. I said to them, ‘If something like this happened, tell me what is happening around it in you own mohalla or town or city. It creates some kind of contextualising’. What came out of it was am amazing kind of experience. They all made small geographies of where they live. They all talked about some kind of urban devastation — no water, one hour of electricity, polluted nallahs and other forms of ecological disaster I found it was very interesting that I could connect with the young generation and what they are thinking of their environment.

In an era of WhatsApp messages and tweets, what is the effect of the written word?
For Nale Wali Ladki, I began look at the effect of print — when you write a letter or make a hand bill — and show how it is a way of getting your voice heard. The woman wrote letters and left it in ironed clothes but nothing happened. The act (of printing and pasting the handbills) became a form of civil disobedience. When she is asked on TV, ‘What do you want everybody to do?’, she says, ‘Apa karma karey’. All she wants is that the form of institutional and state machinery, which are supposed to be there for a common citizen, should be looking after the common citizen. If you notice, election posters still get plastered on the wall. Plastering on the wall catches your eye because it has a physical and material reality and shows that somebody has taken the trouble, spent time and also risked themselves.

How do you maintain a balance between the scenography by a stalwart and acting prowess of young students? Can the former overwhelm the latter?
I don’t think one one make such a distinction. I think that the play is what it is because of what the students do and what he scenography does. The machine was something that came in very early and affected the way the students handled it. It became a part of an acting style. Also, a lot of the scenography is also Deepan (Sivaraman) posing questions to designers. when we worked through that. It was a give and take of ideas. Deepan initially asked, ‘How do we get a small village in?’. Then, we came up with the idea of a tray. If you have a tray, it has to be brought in and taken away. Immediately, the moving village comes in. That how we finalised the work with moving platforms.