Southern States - Kerala   

Taking eve's rights to the street

By G.Mahadevan

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM Dec. 10. Most of those who gathered in front of the Secretariat "agitation'' gate on Monday evening to witness the street-play were men. The actors of the play were also men, but the theme was wholly about women, their rights, their changing relation with men and also about a whole new definition of manliness itself.

The street-play, ''Avastha'', the brainchild of the Abhinaya Theatre Group, was staged before a procession was taken out from the Secretariat to the Gandhi Park at East Fort.

Noted persons such as R. V.G. Menon, B. R. P. Bhasker and Maithreyan were in attendance at the venue, while pedestrians stopped by despite it being the rush hour. The novel proceedings were aimed at highlighting the atrocities against women.

Even as a booming drum announced that the play was about to begin, the actors busied themselves with rudimentary costumes.

It was by invoking the sayings from holy texts that the play began. Such sayings have become the scourge of women, paving the way for their mental and physical subjugation, the actors pointed out to the audience.

``God has said that woman is created for man... but man is not created for woman alone...'', they intoned. ''A girl is to be protected in her childhood by her father, by her husband in her youth and by her son in old age... Na sthree swathanthryam arhathi...''

References to age-old prejudices and male chauvinistic one- liners about women, such as how a man who follows a woman's advice will come to nought, etc., flowed thick and fast. The theatrical purpose was to remind the audience about the accepted concept of "manliness''.

The scene then shifted to a bus where a man accidentally, but repeatedly, keeps bumping onto a woman passenger. When the woman complains, an elderly "gentleman'' in the bus bears witness that it was actually the woman who bumped into the man. Pointing to the hapless woman, the "gentleman'' says, ''She is trying to become a Seelavathi.'' Another "gentleman'' urges the woman to prefer a complaint, but refuses to go to the police station with her on the plea that he was due to speak at a seminar on women's problems.

The location then shifted to a college, where seniors were beating up a junior. When the youth starts crying, he is mocked by the others, "Are you a girl to cry? If you are a man, go take revenge on those who hit you. If you keep crying, you will become a girl...''

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