: Controversial play on assassination of Gandhi performed in London #IndiaNEWS #News London: A controversial play on the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi performed at the prestigious National Theatre

Controversial play on assassination of Gandhi performed in London #IndiaNEWS #News
London: A controversial play on the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi performed at the prestigious National Theatre in London has fared well at the box office and has even received praise in reviews in a section of the British press.
A spokeswoman for the National Theatre indicated the stage show had achieved a a seated capacity of 80 per cent throughout the course of the run since last month.
The main character in the production is not Gandhi, but his killer Nathuram Godse. The depiction unfolds into a portrayal of Gandhi versus Godse ideologies, leaving comment on them somewhat unanswered, unless the audience is expected to reach a conclusion from the cacophony of Godses role.
Any dramatization of history requires a degree of imaginative licence of the playright, argued the writer of the play Chennai-born Anupama Chandrasekhar in a note in the programme for the performance. Thats fair enough. She continued: This is not to say that the play is primarily a work of fiction. Rather, I have used history as the frame within which I could track the trajectories of both Gandhi and Godse, and therefore, of India.
Admittedly, not a great deal is known that widely about Godse compared to a universal figure like Gandhi. This is but natural. How can a school dropout, who worked briefly as a tailors assistant and was in Chandrasekhars words a small-time party worker of the Hindu Mahasabha and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and then the assassin of the father of the Indian nation be of general curiosity other than his unspeakable crime?
Chandrasekhar described it as this battle between the Champion of Ahimsa and his very opposite. Can hate and violence be on the same pedestal as Gandhis peace and non-violence? She acknowledged in reference to two million people dying at the time of the partition of India: The fact that Bengal was fairly peaceful is testament to how much people respected Gandhi Â– and how big Indias loss was with his death.
Yet, she leaves the question suspended on stage and indeed permits Godse the last word. The uninitiated could leave the hall a little baffled between right and wrong, the hero and the villain. They could even wonder if todays extremism is justified because of the death sentence handed down to Godse.
Chandrasekhar highlights the story of Godse being brought up as a girl by his parents. Is there a suggestion that the psychological injury thus committed on him at childhood was the cause of him going astray? Grounds for what he did? Its a risky territory to venture into without scientific substantiation.
When it comes to taboo-busting, Anupama Chandrasekhar has form, wrote The Guardian. Its sister paper on Sundays The Observer was not as enthusiastic.

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