Fear death by life

Fear Death by Life

- Sandesh

I hereby declare that the play “Fear death by life” is original and has not been either published or performed. This script is an inter play of intertextuality, imagination and real life experiences. The names and contexts of the characters from the Ramayana, Hamlet (Ophelia) and Jane Eyre (Bertha Mason and Rochester) used here are not adaptations. The title “Fear death by life” has the resonance of T.S Eliot’s “Fear death by water” in “The Wasteland”. This again is to summon the irony of a woman’s same old fate despite being in a post-modern society ruled by mobile phones and computers.

I dedicate this play to the memory of late Ms Sunita, a Dalit Student and my University mate in the mid 90s, who committed suicide in her hostel room, jilted by her lover of a higher caste. Her tragic death shook our conscience but our attempts to bring the man to books were in vain, probably due to his hold at the higher levels. May Sunita’s soul rest in peace!

This play has One Act and one scene. It makes use of body theatre, stringed instrumental and multi-media. The play is estimated to last for 75 minutes.

(For non-Indian readers: This play has a character called Sita. Sita is a leading character in the Hindu epic called “The Ramayan”. Sita was the wife of the legendary prince Ram. Ram was sent on an exile to the forest for 14 years by his father King Dasarath at the behest of his second wife. Ram was he son of his first wife and his second wife wanted her own son to become the crown prince of the kingdom instead of Ram. Ram leaves the kingdom, accompanied by his wife Sita and half brother Lakshman. In the forest, Sita is kidnapped by the powerful demon king Ravan and taken away to Lanka. With the help of the monkey king Sugriva who he befriends, he sends a search party for Sita and fights a war with Ravan to get Sita back. Among the army of Sugriva is Hanuman, who becomes the greatest devotee of Ram and is worshipped in India. He is known for his power and valour. Ram kills Ravan in this legendary battle. Sita had spent all that time thinking only of Ram in imprisonment, defying Ravan’s appeal to marry him. However, Sita before is reconciled to Ram, Ram asks her to take the test of fire to prove her chastity. Sita accordingly does that and proves her chastity. By then 14 yrs of exile was over and Ram returns to the kingdom with Sita and Lakshman. Ram is crowned King of Ayodhya. People enjoyed peace and prosperity under the sterling rule of the King. On night Ram and Lakshman were wandering incognito to ensure that people are indeed happy. They happen to sight a scene – a man and his wife were quarreling. The man had banished his wife from his house because she had spent the previous night outside. She says that she had to stay out because it was too late to get back alone. The man says he does not believe that she is chaste any more and that he is not a Ram to take his wife back. This shocks and upsets Ram. He makes arrangements to send Sita to forest and banish her. Sita is banished – she realizes this only after she reaches the forest. She was about to commit suicide because she was not able to bear this shock and also because she was pregnant. As she was about to jump off a cliff, a sage in the forest – Valmiki – finds her and protects her. Sita gives birth to Ram’s twins and a chance meeting about 10-12 years after is about to happen with Ram. When they meet this time, Ram calls for a reconciliation on the condition of Sita going through a fire test. Sita rejects it and invokes the earth to engulf her. A heart broken Ram now goes back crowns his twin sons and leaves the earth too. You will find 2 expressions in the story: Maya Sita – the unreal Sita, Kanchan Sita – golden Sita. Both were created in the epic to help Ram complete his duties)

A young woman in white clothes with her back to the audience and working at the computer. Suddenly she switches off the computer and takes her mobile phone, now walks up the stage and starts to text someone. Her text message now flashes on the big multi-media screen at the backdrop: “How r u Manu? Tried calling u. No news.. luv u, reply pl.” She enters the destination mobile number 9800000001 which now flashes on the screen. “Delivered to Manu” flashes on the screen. She now impatiently waits for his reply. A “New message” beep is heard.
She eagerly looks: “New Message Manu” flashes on the screen at the backdrop.
She is seen pressing the key of mobile phone: The message now reads on the screen:
“Got married, good bye”
The young woman is shocked stands still, drops the phone and faints. Darkness.
Fade in. The woman is sitting still on a cot covered with white bed sheets in a state of shock.
Then she starts consuming one after the other, in intervals, something that suggests sleeping pills.
Young woman: For all the great dreams that I saw for you, the smiles, the love, the care, the trust that I gave you..
For all the nightmares that you gave me in return, the tears, the neglect, the shame, the cheating, the loneliness that you gifted me in return

Thank you my man who I still love
My death shall be my revenge to you, and to you my destiny..
Not capable of further violence
I shall die fearlessly, let the world know my story through my death..
Death here I come, make me immortal through death

She slowly reclines on her bed, her eyes close, the slow music that played at the background also stops.
Another young woman in ascetic clothes enters, stands watching her at her bedside.
The woman (sighs): The same mistake, age after age, the same story of shame, loneliness and revenge by killing herself..hey, wake up young lady..
The young lady (still, but speaking as though in sleep): Why should I? Don’t please..I cannot bear the pain of my love lost any more..but ..who are you?
The woman: I am Sita, the daughter of the Earth
The young lady: The legendary Ram’s wife? But you cannot ask me to live. You gave up your life for the same reason I am giving up my life for..
Sita: Come with me, I’ll answer your questions. (Sita gives a hand and lifts her up as she talks and then they start walking together to the edge of the stage)
The young lady: Where are you taking me?
Sita: I am giving you a chance to see and hear what really happened to some of us.. before we everyone thought and wrote that we gave up our lives, something that the world could not see or hear... come and watch..
(Fade in) Sita sitting alone in the same ascetic clothes (in VO, the young lady’s voice: “Oh, Devi Sita, there you are”)
((The stage is lit in a dim brown-yellow light)
Sita (chanting, eyes closed, squatting) : Ram…Ram..
Suddenly, a male voice from outside: “Devi Sita”
Sita: (slowly awakening from her meditative mood and looking in the direction of where the voice has come from) Yes ?
VO: Your sons have won over Ram’s sacrificial horse..Ram is on his way. Won’t you get ready to meet him?”
Sita: (suddenly jubilant) My lord Ram..coming here? How shall I greet him?
(Suddenly becomes aware of her looks…touches her face, rushes to a corner and takes a bowl of water and looks at her own reflection..Oh..have I changed, do I have gray hairs? Feeling her hair… My long hair you admired is intact, and I will wear this hair pin which we exchanged as a sign of our love. Ram, do you remember how you played around with it when we were together…laughs shyly. Sita then becomes conscious of her clothes
Rushes to another corner and picks up something wrapped crudely. She unwraps it and spreads out her gorgeous silk Sari).
Ahhh..(she wraps it around her torso playfully, looks at the bowl of water to see herself again, admiring herself) I will dress just as I looked when you me last…
(Sita suddenly realizes something, her tone, her expressions change) When did you see me last Ram? That night you looked quite cheerful, didn’t we make love? There was no tinge of doubt in your eyes. You held my hands, you playfully counted the bangles in my hands, you pulled me close to you like never before..you loved me more than never before..(Sita stands hugging a pole and slowly forgets herself)

That night…I felt all my sufferings were worth it, feeling secure in your hands. It was worth all the effort, playing the Maya Sita for you…playing the role of an insecure Sita…a Sita to fulfil your desires and aspirations, the Sita to help you chase your illusions of achieving fame and glory…It was all worth it, neglecting my own aspirations, dreams and goals so that I won’t rise above you..so that you would feel secure in my insecurity…It was all worth it …even the test of fire to prove that I was a loyal wife.

But…(suddenly angry) no…I was wrong..so terribly wrong…(Sita violently throws her silk saree wrapped around her and kicks the bowl of water kept on the floor….breaks down, weeps bitterly)
Little did I know that you were insecure still, that you hid betrayal behind the look of trust..till Lakshman left me alone in the forest. Little did I know that you needed not the real me, not the Sita who loved you, but a Kanchan Sita, a Sita who will give you security of the kingdom… of fame..and all that you thought you wanted to keep your status. Ram, you never told me that you were insecure. I could have given you everything to keep your glory, only if you had told me..

You didn’t tell me Ram…yes, that was because you probably did not love me…I am only a daughter of the earth, aren’t I? If you had loved me, you would have at least thought how a lonely woman will survive in a jungle, that she might kill herself or get killed…
(Laughs) The wild animals were kind to me, but your memories were cruel…your memories then chased me to the edge of a cliff and were about to push me…Why did Valmiki stop me? To salvage your glory? To tell your story or mine?
(Sita strikes a fire)
I have no lineage to boast of except the one which King Janaka gave me.. no security to show off except my consistent love, my chastity..who wants all that?
Love that can stand the test of fire? Who wants all that?
(Looks intently at the blazing fire. Speaks as she goes around it)
Agni, when you proved that my love for Ram was true, …you approved his right not to be cheated. Now don’t I have the same right too? Answer me!
(Defiant) Why should I meet Ram when he comes here..what is his purpose of coming here..why should he meet the woman he once loved and rejected and threw at the mercy of wild animals? After the Maya Sita and Kanchan Sita, what role does he want me to play?
VO(male): Devi Site…can I come in?
Sita (listens): Ram…Ram.. (as Ram enters, she moves to a corner her body, her limbs, everything weakens)
Ram is at the centre stage
Ram: Site, I beg your forgiveness, it was a drama that I had to play…
Sita: ..(weakly,though her strength only grows gradually as the dialogue progresses) I understand…all for your security as the King of Ayodhya..
Ram: But I saw to it that you survived it all..It’s time to start life afresh..my kingdom has now become an empire, I am reunited with my sons..I have achieved everlasting fame. I can give you a secure life now…
Sita: (Laughs, she moves to the centre as Ram slowly recedes to the fringe of the stage ) So don’t you want me to take the test of fire, I am sure you cannot accept me as I am..see you are not even able to look at me eye to eye…
Ram: Err..yes..just a formality Site, for my people of Ayodhya..but I trust you completely…
Sita: You make me feel like a fallen woman.. Thanks, what if I don’t? I’ve decided to take another test. It’s a test that will release me from my bondage with you. If I am pure,.it is a test to instill my faith in myself
Ram: (puts his head down, silent)
Sita: (Invokes the earth as Ram watches in disbelief)
Mother Earth, if I am your daughter, if I came from you, listen to me. If I am pure, if I have an identity for myself, please accept me. I will live with your other daughters, toil in the sun and rain, earn my living with the sweat of my brow..please accept me.
The screen behind shows the earth cracked open in a quake. Sita in a choreographed movement and music of the earth. A tanned cloth slowly enveloping her suggests that she is accepted by the earth.
Light again.
Sita and the young girl stand facing each other.
Young lady: So you committed suicide and Ramayana almost ends with your story, doesn’t it?
Sita: Valmiki called it a suicide…probably because I didn’t return to Ram…but I went back to a life of my own. I still live with common people as one of them, as the daughter of the earth.
Young lady: So, why do you stop me from dying..?
Sita: Because after suicide, the soul suffers even more… while the others on earth move on with their lives. Life is more glorious than death. See how many people struggle to survive and you are trying to snuff your self out so mercilessly, shame on you..
Young lady: But there were people who glorified such deaths…
Sita: Where?
Young Lady: Ophelia, Hamlet’s beloved, who died for love in her madness and then..…
Sita: (Laughs, cutting her short) Literature always glorified suicide but real life doesn’t..but see what happened to Ophelia. In fact, Shakespeare gave her a tragic death, the story could have been different if Shakespeare did not want to glorify man’s inability to make a prudent choice
Young Lady: How?
Sita: (Pointing to the front) See there she is, ready to jump into the pool from the tree top…how I wish she had lived in that story..
Fade in. (dull bluish white light)
(Ophelia standing poised to jump into a pool of water – also projected on the screen..she is stands facing the screen as though from the edge of a tree trunk..She is singing, her hair is disheveled…festooned in wild flowers..
Suddenly she turns around …there is a look of sanity on her face.
Ophelia sits on the edge and starts weeping..in the dialogue that follows, there is an interplay of sanity and insanity)
Ophelia: O Hamlet, you loved me for my gentleness. I stayed gentle so that you will love me evermore…but then you thought that I was insensitive and did not respond to your love..I was only caring for your status as a Prince. Then when I became bold in my love for you, you disgraced me.. When I urged you to make up your mind, you sent me off disgracing me..remember what you told me (miming Hamlet) “ Get thee to a nunnery”. You made feel like a fallen woman. You were insecure for your kingdom, never willing to act..the world calls me mad. They think I don’t have a mind of my own..All because I loved you..all because you are insecure, indecisive…(miming Hamlet) “To be or not to be…that’s the question”. Your love is more cruel than my madness…. it has driven me to this cliff. They say you will be killed in that foreign land soon. Let these waters consume my madness and make my love for you immortal. Cold waters take me.
(Ophelia, jumps off the cliff……..darkness
Instant fade in, the Young Woman comes running to the stage shouting “Ophelia, don’t, Hamlet will be back”
Ophelia stands before her…
The young woman looks at her in surprise)
Young woman: So..you didn’t die?
Ophelia: Oh, yes, Shakespeare killed me, for tragic effect, to give a clean space for Hamlet to die…and to glorify man’s eternal predicament..of “to be or not to be..” (laughs)
Young woman: If you had lived, I am sure the world would have seen a different Ophelia..
Ophelia: I know, but they wanted to make Hamlet famous for his “To be or not to be..” and denounce me for “not having a mind of my own”. Read those commentaries .. even the feminists have not spoken for me yet.
Young woman: Ophelia…So in fact, you were not mad..you were only acting insane.. for your own security …
Ophelia: Yes, probably I was the last of the lot. Later in history, there are women whose madness was created by men. Men who burnt their women..Don’t you know what happened to Bertha Mason?
Young Woman: Who the feminists speak of as the “Mad woman in the Attic”?
Ophelia: Whatever.. I can’t imagine how she died in that test of fire..
Both of them stand looking ahead as though watching something happening.
(Fade in) – Flame yellow glow on the stage
(The stage is now divided into 2 halves.
Bertha Mason is seen in confinement, her hands and feet tied symbolically. She can barely move. There is just a candle burning on her side of the stage. On the other half of the stage is Rochester standing – reasonably well lit. But both can’t see each other. When they speak, they speak facing each other to a closed door between them)
Bertha: (Bertha struggles to her feet and inches towards the door) Rochester…Rochester..open the door, how long will you shut me in this horrible attic?
Rochester: Shut up Bertha…do not spoil my future again now.
Bertha: (slowly reaching half-way to the door) What did I do? That I loved you in the wildest way never known to you.
Rochester: Bertha, you do not understand. We discovered each other at a different time and place..Here, today in this part of the world..you are so different from the rest. Even I feel distant from you….You are insane, not wild. Don’t hope for any return of affection from me
Bertha: (stops short) So what are you saying?
Rochester: That I don’t need you..sorry.
Bertha: Open the door once and tell me this, look at me and tell me this. I am….
Rochester: (cutting her short) I don’t have to give you explanations..I was stepping into a new life. You interfered. Now, stay where you are. I will pray that you be cured of your madness in confinement. That’s the only cure I can give you..forgive me..
Bertha: (screams) Rochester…forgive you? For deeming me mad for what I am? For believing in love and you.. in spite of all the differences? In return you call me unchaste, wild, loud. I still loved you. (bitterly) I am not mad Rochester. Please set me free. ..Rochester please… (she bangs the door loudly with her head, almost weeping aloud)
Rochester: Set you free? in this English countryside? and spoil my reputation?..I cannot be secure in the hands of a mad woman, how can I stay a husband to a lunatic? Be kind to me Bertha. You are wild like fire.
Bertha: (Laughs out loud) Rochester, do you remember the sweet words you showered on me once, how you loved me for my colour, my looks, my riches, my skin, the wild way I loved you.. (slowly picks up the candle on the ground with struggle)
You loved me for the fire in me…I kept it blazing for you..
Rochester: It has now become a fire of madness if you understand, Bertha, a fire that I’m now ashamed of.
Bertha: (in a deep voice) I heard you telling Jane that I am mad..
Rochester: Jane?..Err.. yes..Yes you are..you spoilt my chances of living peacefully with Jane..I hate you all the more Bertha..
Bertha: What..you …. and Jane? (She kicks the candle which catches on to the sheet lying behind). Remember Rochester, you loved me first.. I’ll not let this injustice happen when I’m alive.. ..
(Bertha realizes that the cot has caught fire, is trying to douse it, now inches towards the door and starts banging her head on the door..)
Bertha: Rochester..open the door..there is fire..
Rochester: I’ve heard your saying this a number of times..you are jealous now. Stay there..
((Rochester goes off. .. Bertha screams…flames through multi-media on the screen that suggests she’s killed in the fire..and then, darkness)
(Slow Fade in and music. The young lady sits on one side of the stage, hands covering her face. The rest of the stage is dark.
Light falls on the middle of the stage figuring, Sita, Ophelia and Bertha. )
Bertha: Hey young woman, what are you thinking? Feeling sorry?
Young woman: (lifting her head) I don’t know…overwhelmed to see you people face to face..
Bertha: Understand that we are characters from legends and imagination…are we glorified in fiction? is a woman in real life glorified for taking her own life – from a princess to an ordinary woman?
Young Woman: Is she?
Sita: Do you remember Anita, the young Dalit girl who took her own life when you were studying in University?
Young Woman: (Getting up, and trying to recollect) Anita,, yes because a higher caste boy used her for his needs
Ophelia: ..Impregnated her…
Bertha: …and then married another girl from his own caste..
Young Woman: (as she describes, she’s living that role of Anita) …Yes…Anita, because for him she was just that – an object to gratify his needs -- she had no status to boast of, dowry to give, her parents were poor.. (she slowly moves to the centre stage) Anita pleaded with him to accept her…(on the screen, a young woman at a young man’s feet, pleading and the man pushes her away and walks off..) but his answer made her feel like a fallen woman….Anita could not bear this…(she ties the dupatta like a noose for hanging…) she could not suffer the insult…and ended her life …hanging ….in the air in the University hostel room…………………………..(she freezes with the noose framing her face and neck)
Sita: (Going close to her) Do you remember what you said then, when you heard about it?
Young Woman: (speaking in a trance, slowly changing the noose back to dupatta) Yes….that she should have lived. By dying, she in fact made that man’s life very secure…..she should have lived, empowered herself, spread her wings…
I remember, we held protests and dharnas in the University against this man..(backdrop screen showing women and men conducting protest march. She points to it as the characters watch) hmmm.. (in disgust) but nothing came of it…he is probably happily living his life now, with no sense of guilt.
(in desperation and deep voice) Why do we die for our Lost Love? For ages, we have given up our lives by earth, by water, by fire, by air and by killing our consciousness.. choking our very spirit…
Sita: In embracing death, did Anita get her love back?...or any woman for that matter who gave up her life for lost love? It only makes the cheater secure. Shouldn’t your fire of love make you live, rather than die? Now, young lady, (with the others in chorus) do you still want to die? The choice is yours..
(The characters fade off in the darkness. Light on the young woman lying on the cot.. She wakes up. Gets off the bed. Lights a lamp She picks up the lamp and places it on the centre of the stage..Music. She goes out, then comes with a handful of mud in one hand and a bowl of water in the other.She leave the bowl of water on the floor near the lamp. Now, like a ritual she raises both her palms and showers the mud on herself. Picks up the bowl of water and pours it on herself and then in prayerful mood she goes around the fire. Now breathing deeply, in a yogic posture, she spreads her hands in the air as though in invocation. The light indicating a new dawn)…
Young Woman: For all the women who gave up their lives for their lost love, for Anita, my University mate who died for the love she lost…. Here, I choose to live…may their souls rest in peace.”
(The Mrutyunjaya Mantra played at the background. While she stands in the foreground in this gesture, the music of “Bhoomi mangalam…”merges into the mantra and the other 3 women characters in choreographic movements around her dance symbolizing the five elements and in celebration of life. The curtains draw to a close slowly.)

(The end)