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December 17, 2012. Yael Farber’s Facebook news feed carried an article about the brutal gangrape that had taken place the night before in New Delhi. An award-winning theatre director from South Africa, Farber was deeply moved by the incident. Her Facebook status on the day the young girl died read: “My sister, my daughter, my mother, myself.” Thousands of miles away in Mumbai, actor Poorna Jagganathan was also shocked by the news. She reached out to Farber, who was part of her Facebook friends list, and decided that the silence around sexual violence needed to be broken. “We knew that we had to do something about it. What, we had no idea, but we were going to use the only medium we both knew — theatre,” says Jagganathan. And thus, Nirbhaya, the play was born.
The name, which means ‘fearless’, not only is a dedication to the December 16 rape victim, but also a call to people to be fearless, urging them to break their silence. “Silence is what keeps the epidemic of sexual violence in place; silence is what creates a culture of unaccountability,” says Jagganathan who has produced and also acted in the two-hour long play.
Such was the duo’s conviction in the cause that Farber quit her job as head of direction at a university and travelled to India in February 2013 for the initial workshop. The three-week long workshop with seven actors like Ankur Vikal, Priyanka Bose and Rukhshar Kabir led to an understanding about the impact that Nirbhaya’s death had had on them. The rehearsals started later that year in June. “Suddenly three weeks into the rehearsal, things changed. Till then, the play was being built around our stories — of experiences of our childhood right up to adulthood. Farber said that she had a vision at night,” says Jagannathan. “She saw six bus seats and the lone figure of Nirbhaya walking through them. From that day, the play just came together.”
Five of the seven artists step forward to share their own experiences of sexual and gender-based violence. Especially moving is the testimony of acid-attack survivor Sneha Jawale who has also acted in the play. Her saga of torture began when she moved into her husband’s home, where he and his brother started harassing her for dowry. In 1997, they burned her with acid. Nirbhaya comes into each of their stories as a figure who catapults them into the past. “Beyond the darkness, however, Nirbhaya bears witness to the human spirit’s extraordinary capacity for survival and redemption,” says Farber.
Vikal, the lone male artist in the play, considers his role as one of the toughest that he has done recently. “I get to inhabit the characters of all kinds of men and aid these amazing women in breaking their silence. The role has broken me on all levels and I am positive that I will be of more use to society once I reassemble myself.”
Yael Farber
After each show, the cast members would stand outside the auditorium as the audience filed past. “We were stunned by the universality of grief. From burly men to petite women, people of every nationality and gender were articulate in their expressions of traumas or wanting to be a part of the change needed in their own communities,” says Farber.
Nirbhaya will be staged in Delhi between March 22 and 24 and in Bangalore between March 26 and 28. Details about venue and timings can be found at www.nirbhayatheplay.com
