A wedding message

THE SET was impressive. It had an expansive beach, a sea wavering between black and blue, and a blooming moon giving night some silver. A few bungalows on one side, slums on the other, a temple and some quiet.

The chill winds, soft and caressing, made the evening ideal for a lazy, cradling snore, but that was not to be. A drama was happening.

Residents of Tiruvanmiyur Kuppam, mostly fisherfolk, chose to squat by the Amman Koil instead of retiring to their huts after a hard days work. On a makeshift stage in front, stained-teeth Sadayappan was pestering his sister Saroja in his comically slum twang to get her daughter married to him.

``I get so many calls that some building to be constructed here, another to be pulled down (He's supposed to be a construction worker.) Oh! I don't know where I will be. Better arrange the wedding soon.'' What starts almost as a command turns into a pitiful whimper, and Saroja concedes.

But 19-year-old Sandhya, obviously, cannot marry a jobless bumpkin, so what if he's the hero, rather anti-hero, of the play. She wants to complete her studies (in Computers, what else) and will not agree to wed before she is 21.

The play Kalyana Malai is as much about women's empowerment as much as its emphasis is on pre-natal care, the appropriate marriageable age, and the possible medical complications arising from marriages among close relatives.

There are also a lot of other misconceptions to be dispelled. Like a pregnant woman eating dark coloured fruits will give birth to a dark coloured child.

The script is no nonsense social message play. It came about after extensive research on the behaviour and dietary habits of slum people, specially women and children in Chennai.

Kalyana Malai is in fact a focussed version of an earlier script tested in two other slums, which dealt more with maternal health.

``But we realised we had to reach adolescent girls in slum families even before they reached the age for marriage. And to address the family as a whole because a girl needs all the support and understanding she can get,'' says Nithya of Nalamdana, the NGO that organised the play.

Yet, the play is so engrossingly funny, mostly due to Sadayappans antics, like where he presents his dear Sandhya a saree and his sister the freebie.

Arivazhagan, who plays Sadayappan, raises the script a few notches, giving his character a very likable and raw vulnerability.

By Feroze Ahmed

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