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| PHOTO BY S. ISLAM |
What impacted me the most was the realization of my role as a member of the audience. There were so many moments during the performance where I wanted to jump from my seat, run onto the stage and offer my arms to these women or beat their assailants off. I didn't want to be that person struggling with the bystander effect. I wanted to get in right in the middle of all of it and break it up, cast a protective veil over these women, and scare off these men who seemed so relentless in their pathological and sadistic lust for power over these women, some were girls at the time.
Perhaps this is what was so concerning about the depiction of men in the play. It is so easy for the mind to start raging against those who have benefited for centuries from patriarchy and misogyny; it is so easy to give in to that fear that the people in our lives can instantly turn from gentle-hearted, compassionate companions and commuters to people who want to hunt, harm, and destroy us if we try to assert our confidence, our knowledge, and/or our leadership in any way. The way the mind works, I understood all too well the seeds of stigma and hatred against certain groups of people when all are painted with the same brush. But I wasn't going to allow my mind to go that way because I don't think that's what the intent of the show was. "Nirbhaya" didn't want women leaving the space angry and ready to smash all men to pieces. They wanted women and men to leave with a clearer understanding of the system in which we are raising our children - a system that defines both masculinity and femininity in very narrow and oppressive ways - a system that allows for such violent acts against women and girls to continue as we, its spectators, look on in helpless fascination.
I loved the fiery tone of Priyanka Bose as she narrated much of Jyoti Singh Pandey's tragic death and her own suffering as a child through gritted teeth and uplifted arms in the postures of the mighty Kali and Durga.
I understood Poorna Jagannathan's profoundly shocking "confession" of the "poisonous" nature of the "pleasure" she felt when trauma entrapped her.
I saw through Sneha Jawale's tears on stage as she revisited the day when she nearly died after enduring a vicious attack by family who also took her child away from her.
I hung onto Rukhsar Kabir's every word as she recollected how she was forced to believe that the violence against her was just another way of life, and how she finally stood up and said no more.
Pamela Mala Sinha's story burned in my guts. She spoke to that fear in me that compels me to lie in bed in near catatonic rigidity most nights. I know of the hole she speaks of.
Ankur Vikal, the sole male actor, the one male who played a hundred males - a hundred males who were friends, rapists, brothers, abusers, uncles, killers, fathers. All at once, imperceptibly, Vikal would shift from this character to that. From light to darkness. I was terrified of and for him.
Finally, Japjit Kaur, with her haunting singing voice that began the show and ran as a soothing thread throughout, she kept my tears flowing from beginning to end, for it was in her character's story - the real "Nirbhaya" that I saw the unfathomable loss that the Earth has suffered from the violent deaths of its mothers, daughters, sisters...women. As "Nirbhaya" walked in slow, measured steps on stage, draped in an off-white salwar, I felt that the ghost of her real self was there, holding space for all of us who are survivors, who are on the path, on some path, to rediscover our voices, whether through art, music, and poetry, or through restoring community, or through advocacy, or through media, or through calling for a national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women, or through supporting women living with HIV, or through living with hope and love every day.
Every day the world might change a little.
I realized that just by being there, in that packed theatre, I was bearing witness, I was joining their voices and repeating the words uttered, "I saw that." Three words, so powerful. I. Saw. That.
I saw the play that I thought I couldn't see, that I wouldn't get to see. I heard their stories. I held that space for these courageous women alongside everyone else who was there. Yes, I felt like running out at times, many times, but I knew I had to remain seated, to honour these stories, to share these stories, and to help make things change for all of us trapped within the confines of stereotypes, prejudice, racialization, gender-based violence, and all the other oppressive ways we have learned to control one another or keep people in their place. These systems are destroying us. But thanks to the raw, biting fury in the ART we create, there are always reminders that we, as a species, have the capacity - the strong, eternal heart capacity - to do better, to do right by one another. Our fearless Jyoti Singh Pandey deserves that. And all the fearless women and girls who died with her. Rest in peace, angels.
I quote here the artistic director of Nightwood Theatre company, Kelly Thornton's words as presented in the play's program:
"What does it mean to be fearless? Perhaps it is not to be without fear but rather, to act in spite of it. For those breaking their silence and for those here to witness, the first step is being here tonight...This is what theatre can do. Invite us together to confront ourselves. And in so doing, restore our world."
Yes. Confront myself. It's how I might make things change, a little.
