Browsing a popular website for my daily dose of news, I came across the
headline "CRPF jawan kills 2 colleagues in Srinagar". Purportedly, the reason
for this shootout was "tremendous stress on the Jawan in the course of his
work".
This incident came close on hills of another incident in which a Central
Industrial Security Force (CISF) constable Raj Namdeo shot dead his deputy
commandant A. R. Karanjkar and took six hostages (including five women)
at Mumbai Airport. Presumably, Namdeo was stressed out by his 14-hour work
schedule and was seriously annoyed by Karanjkar who had denied him leave.
These two incidents reminded me of a play, "Court Martial", which I had
directed when I was in college. An excellent play written by Swadesh DeepakJi,
"Court Martial" is a story of a Jawan Ram Chander who is tried in a murder
case. His crime: he had shot two senior army officers, killing one of them
and seriously injuring the other. And all this to protect his badly bruised
self-esteem. A Court Martial is set to investigate and decide upon the crime.
The Court Room is presided by a war-veteran Colonel Surat Singh who has been
witness to many 'life-and-death' situations. But this trial puts him in a
queer position so far unknown to him and during the course of interrogation
he realizes that the issues at stake are much larger than meet the eye. At
the end of it all, he sentences the Jawan to death sentence. However, the
almighty also plays its part and forces the actual culprit to.....
The play has special memories to me as not only had I directed the play,
I had also enacted the key role of Bikash Roy in the play. During the practice
sessions, memorizing the long dialogues of Bikash Roy had proved to be an
arduous task. And while I kept reproaching everyone for failing to memorize
the dialogues, I proved to be the biggest stumbling block. My sore and allergy-prone
throat did not help the cause a bit. During the second last day of practice,
one of the actors walked out, leaving us in a rather precarious position.
Somehow a substitute was managed (who later turned out to be much better
than the original one). On the last day of practice, my fellow cast could
not digest the music piece (a Robert Miles composition from the album Dreamland)
that I had selected for the climax. However, I took a risk and stood by
my selection.
On the eventful day, from the very start of play I felt as though the character
had entered my body - I ceased to be Chachu anymore. What followed was an
excellent performance by our team. And when we bagged all the top honours,
included Best Play, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor,
no one was surprised. That was my first big success in the world of theatre.
There after I staged many good and bad plays. With the end of my graduation,
the theatre also took back seat.
Many years after I had staged the play, I put a small write up about the
play on my website (
https://skasera.tripod.com/courtmartial.htm
). That page, along with many others, captured my chequered past.
Slowly, the play had ceased to exist in my life barring occasional memories
of glory and ecstasy.
One fine day, I received an email from a gentleman who commended my effort
of putting a write up of the play on my website. He, in fact, had taken
a printout of the web page and had gifted it to the "Swadesh DeepakJi" -
the writer of the play . The gentleman turned out to be the brother of the
writer. He even took the effort of sending me free copies of the play "Court
Martial" (which incidentally I had lost) and few other works of "Swadesh
DeepakJi".
Occasionally, I get the urge of staging a play in my company - especially
because it has been four years since I have stepped my foot on the world
of drama.
Dramatics apart, the essence of the play "Court Martial" and the problems
highlighted by it are still pertinent. And still we are witness to acts
where a subordinate shoots his supervisor. The episode forces me to make
three points. The first point is about the deep-rooted stratification of
the society - be it on the caste lines, or on the basis of economic might
or even on the basis of religion. I made this might, albeit a bit differently
in an earlier column:
"Thy do not have a voice,
so thy will suffer,
the weak will meekly yield to the powerful,
those who can kill, will,
this is nothing new,
but thy protest, 'Aren't we not civilized -
At least we proclaim so?'
Laws are made,
presumably,
but are they followed,
thy do not have an answer."
The aforementioned lines tell us all. The lines also lead us to the second
point. In a nation where the weak hardly have a voice, it is imperative
that the society functions according to "Rule of law". But the utter disregard
to laws, the complete breakdown of the judiciary, and inept and corrupt
police department provides no hope to the ordinary citizen. In fact, the
inefficacy of the Judiciary was admitted by none other than the Solicitor
General of India Soli Sorabjee. As I drive across the Delhi roads and see
people, almost in a majority, brazenly break all laws under the earth -
be it red light jumping, wrong-side driving and overloading to cite a few
examples. My heart laments at my helplessness and I have plenty of company.
But alas! no solution is in sight, not even remotely.
The third point leads us to a different path: that of providing a humane
working environment to all those, be it those defending the country's border
in Siachen, or those constructing building in the sweltering heat of Delhi.
Here again, since I have no solution, I will let the readers to ponder from
here...