Jan 2004
In 1984 a Union Carbide factory exploded in Bhopal India, killing three
thousand people. Years later, Rahul Varma, founder of Teesri Duniya
Theatre saw the documentary Bhopal Beyond Genocide in which the image
of an 18-day-old baby, Zarina, appeared. Struck by her fragility and
innocence, he asked himself how would she describe her pain if
she could? Is her silence not telling me everything I need
to know, was his answer, and from that point he began a quest
to articulate the silence.
In his most recent production, Bhopal, Rahul Varma clearly articulates
baby Zarinas journey, both the nine months inside the womb and
for the 18 days on the outside. The play which is a dramatization of
historical events is a story that is based in the characters. With a
strong political focus on the health of women and how the race for industrialization
affects health especially of those in the third world, this play raises
further questions about the perceived value of women in society today.
What Varma discovered in his research was that the plants lax
maintenance, forced mothers in the area to inhale poisonous gases and
thus acquiring diseases so harmful that their unborn children were also
affected by disease and deformity.
This is a fundamental violation of the dignity of people
it
is corporate inhumanity designed in the western world and shipped to
a poor country like India and then legitimized in the development and
progress of the state, says Varma.
The denial of a womans right to a healthy baby and a childs
right to be born healthy lead him to explore the perception that we
as a society dont care about the consequences of our actions,
particularly when it comes to the social and health conditions of women.
This is a fundamental violation of the dignity of people
it
is corporate inhumanity designed in the western world and shipped to
a poor country like India and then legitimized in the development and
progress of the state
As a self proclaimed feminist, Rahul Varma was always drawn to social
causes. Part of the experience of a new immigrant becomes the issue
of identity. Upon arrival in Canada at the age of 25, he says he didnt
want to define his identity by food, clothing and traditions. Instead
Rahul wanted to explore the fundamental issues that define people of
a country, those being the social, organic, real issues. Mainstream
media often chooses to represent ethnic cultures from either an exotic
point of view or as being totally disempowered, poor and destitute.
For Rahul neither are true and instead he chose to highlight the ideology
of the people of India and focus on the grass roots as opposed to the
flimsiness of the middle and upper classes. While the majority of Indians
may not be literate they are educated by the experiences of life, and
this education should not be dismissed or overlooked.
People of India are very hard working, they are their ideological
selves. They are going through serious difficulties
their lifestyle
is not simply a style but rather an ideology that permits them to live
the complexity and contradictions that are always surrounding them,
says Varma. Applying innovation to his artistic talent, Varma uses the
stage as a tool to engage a broader audience and raise awareness about
the new realities of the ethnic and cultural experience.
Previous productions include Trading Inquiries which illustrates the
experiences of women in the textile industry and the critically acclaimed
Counter Offence which examines conjugal violence against women. Varma
says one of his major cultural shocks upon his arrival in Canada was
the degree of violence that existed in ethnic communities. Indian culture
is heavily interwoven with the notion that women are devis yet they
are not treated that way. He says that while the topic of violence against
women was a difficult subject for a man to handle, attention needed
to be brought to the issue, which from his perspective is a problem
of the male culture. I am learning that the stage should be gender
balanced and [currently] the way our theatre and cultural expressions
[exist], they are very male dominated
somewhere this has to begin
to change, says Varma.
As the co-founder of Teesri Duniya Theatre, Rahul Varma offers an innovative
and entertaining way to raise awareness and get people thinking through
socially and politically relevant theatre. His latest production, Bhopal,
has been translated into Hindi and given a year long tour in India and
is currently in the process of being translated into French for the
2004 year.
For more information on Teesri Duniya visit www.teesriduniyatheatre.com