13) Foe

13) Foe
Just let me be on my knees,
Let on my hand be a rose,
Let there be a smile on her face,
Let me that portrait finish,
Grant me this one last wish,
Love .. oh .. love.

I won’t be able to
Live in this sea of hate,
Unless you leave me with
At least a ray of hope,
Don’t maroon without even a drop of tear,
Love .. oh .. love.

Oh ! I would’ve lived always in a dreamland,
I would’ve cherished you, forever in my heartland,
But why didn’t you stop me from,
facing her, loosing her,
Love .. oh .. love.
Why did you become my foe.

Street play: Misconceptions about Mental Illnesses

Street play: Misconceptions about Mental Illnesses

(About 6-7 actors are the minimum need, and up to 10 actors can take part as it is flexible.)

Props: about 10 placards. 9 of them needed to be tied at two ends with a thread, or if more elaborate work can be done, then they can be stuck to caps or some head gear. In big lettering they should be written:
1) Pollution,
2) Infection
3) Food poisoning
4) Pickpocket
5) Angry boss
6) Death
7) Typhoid or cancer
8) Mad
9) Recovered mad
10) This will continue

SCENE - 1:
A director is doing his job, setting up a scene of a mental hospital. He is frantically running around, yelling at his actors and actresses to yell out more loudly, attack each other, laugh loudly and cry together, move body more etc. There are a few actors who are trying to look and behave like inmates of a mental hospital from a typical Hindi film. (The attempt is to make the mentally ill people look like they are a mix between insane and intellectually retarded people, who do stupid things, which is supposed to make audience laugh).

The clapboard is closed to indicate the scene has started, and then there is mayhem and chaos. Somebody is crying out loudly and laughing, a doctor is running around giving direct shock from broken wire and hitting people with a big hammer, somebody runs around to attack the audience. Suddenly a guy from outside walks in and the director yells, “cut, cut”.

The guy: (Who just walked in) What’s all this?
Director: We are shooting a mental hospital scene.
Guy: But hey, have you ever been to a mental hospital, seen the inside of a mental hospital?
Director: No, never, I didn’t have to… haha… haha

Guy: Hey, this is not a laughing matter, how can you show all these people about a mental hospital if you have not even bothered to find how it is?, and I don’t understand, even educated people like you (fingering audience) laugh when somebody is insulting your intelligence like this?? (the audience who were having fun till now, quiet down as they realize they had not thought of it earlier).

Director: hey, you got a point there, how does a mental hospital look?
Guy: let’s go to one, and let me show you all.

SCENE - 2:
Scene of a mental hospital as it usually looks in most parts of the world. It is more like any ordinary hospital for physiological diseases. There are a few people going on about their business, some are lost in their own world. Some are doing meaningful work. The doctor is treating people in a humane way. One of the guys is seen as being discharged as he has recovered and moving out. Other inmates wish him luck just in the normal way. The director is walking around observing all this and he claps his hands with other inmates when they clap to give the recovered patient a warm goodbye. Claps and claps.

SCENE - 3:
At the two ends of stage two people are standing. A voice over comes and introduces them. Then guy-1 starts walking forward and is seen walking ahead all the time. Suddenly he closes his nose as if he has neared a smelly place. A person wearing the board pollution runs out to the stage and runs around guy-1 and disappears. Guy-1 gets a bit tired and droops, but within a few seconds straightens up and walks back normally.

Then guy-2 walks ahead, towards him a guy with board of pick-pocket runs and circles and disappears. The guy-2 after few seconds searches and finds his loss and droops for some seconds, then shrugs off and walks back normally. Similarly for guy-1 food poisoning comes and for guy-2 it is firing from his boss, and in the third round, infection through mosquito for guy-1 and death of a close person for guy-2. All three times they recover after momentary affect.

Then in the fourth round for guy-1 all three things come together and dance around him and he falls down, and when the dancers disappear he is wearing a board - typhoid. And for guy-2 all three things dance and he also falls down and is seen wearing a board MAD.

Voice over: when our body is imbalanced it shows symptoms - sometimes they are psychological symptoms and sometimes they are physiological and sometime a mixed effect. The person is not responsible for it totally in either case.

SCENE - 4:
again guy-1 and guy-2 are standing at 2 ends, guy-1 is cared by his family, but guy-2 with MAD as the board on him is kicked out and people are pushing him, laughing at him, kids throw stones at him etc. guy-1 recovers quickly, puts on the board on recovered from typhoid and is welcomed by his colleagues and relatives. Guy-2 is put in mental hospital and recovers slowly alone and is put on the board of recovered MAD.

When guy-2 returns home, a small kid runs to welcome him, but other older members restrain her and tells him to get lost, and that once MAD means always MAD. Onlookers also nod their heads to agree and laugh at the recovered mad guy-2 and push him away, kids throw stones at him, and everyone dance madly around him. When they go back, the guy-2 is put the board of MAD and he is lying down on the floor in pain.

Voice over: “discrimination done between a physiological and a mental disease is due to ignorance, nobody can change the chemical changes that happens in their brain just like nobody can kill cancer cells on their own. Both are diseases and these people need help and co-operation from outside world”.

SCENE - 5:
One guy comes in front and tells the audience that to help people in distress and improve our society we need unity, if we stand together we can overcome problems. Another actor then walks in and says we need mass education, and that knowledge is the key for a better future. The first guy is looking in astonishment when a third actor comes and says we need sympathy for others and peace in our heart and the world will become a paradise.

The two others push the third away and a fourth comes and says we need to have faith and belief, and only God can help us sinners, and fifth and sixth one come together and start saying technological advances are what we need to concentrate and sixth one yells justice and equality should be enforced and their is a pushing match and these people start yelling and hitting each other and mayhem and chaos reigns. One guy with a big placard written, “THIS WILL CONTINUE”, walks around the fighting people as the curtain falls. (To signify, good intentions also require team work and systematic efforts to reach fruitful stage, this is the punch line or twist at the end).

[This street-play won 2nd prize in Bombay Univ. annual fest. in ’97. Written and directed by Venky Iyer, Actors: Shashank, Deepa, Vidya, Indrayani, Atish, Venky (MA Psychology Dept) & Abhijit (Math Dept) and Samir].

12) Dust

12) Dust
A smoldering fire,
Was blazing erect,
Aided by the windless night,
In the middle of darkness;
In the middle of darkness?

All around the fire,
Ghosts dancing in silent music
Their giant shadows falling,
In asymmetrical patterns;
In asymmetrical patterns?

Through the cracked earth,
Flow scenes from the past,
Broken dolls, burned papers
And rising in midst,
Dust of unrealized dreams.

11) Dreamer

11) Dreamer
Her laugh defines freedom,
Her clothes casual than denim,
Her glance borders on carelessness,
Her eyes brim with mischievousness,

Her hair reminds me of an unruly child,
Her makeup invisible like wind,
Her attitude so damn cool,

Her books bricks in a wall,
Her face a treasury of myriad expressions,
Her walk breezy like air.

Her specs golden like her heart, I am sure
But her awareness, I am alive zero?
That’s all I want to change,
Maybe tomorrow.

10) Dream

10) Dream
I had a long lost dream,
With the innocence of childhood,
Just a few seasons behind,
But unseen like last years rain.

A dream to awake, to hear the
Squeaking of heart, while lost in rat races,
Digging deeper into the mine,
Searching for the glittering dust.

It didn’t matter,
Whether I was waddling or walking,
As I stared through the thickening mist,
Up at the widening sky.

Lack of light, didn’t stop
Me, from stopping,
And to engrave my name in gold,
I am still running.

9) Cure

9) Cure
Pigments color the skin,
Climate affects complexion,
Creases come with age,
Changes a person a lot, care
And beauty is only skin deep;

Though curse I myself, later
Can’t seem to help craving,
To converse, caress,
Can’t afford the bills,
Can’t the ceaseless chatter bear
Yet, can’t seem to help suffering,
From countless heartaches.

But stops me not, all this awareness,
From falling again for a pretty face;
And can’t seem to find a cure,
For this confounded thing;

Seem so intense,
During their duration,
And fool me every time,
These hollow emotions…

8) Crush

8) Crush
Your casual clothes,
Your careless walk,
Your white hair band,
Your black watch
And the bag you carry,
Only half filled with books,
I like all those things about you.

Your mischievous curly strand of hair,
Which keep falling on your face,
Your black lovely eyes,
Which overflows with innocence,
Your sweet smile,
Which brightens up the whole place;
I like all those things about you.

I don’t know your name,
But it is as beautiful I am sure,
I haven’t heard your voice,
But I won’t come near,
Because I am afraid to hear,
The word, ‘No’
So I’ll stay away from you,
Until I can like even that word from you.

7) Circus

7) Circus
Kids craning their necks,
Amidst feeble claps,
Smell of animal dung
And glaring lights all around.

Unusual acts performed
In colorful costumes.
People living on the edge,
Of fame and lameness.

The phony weights and
Fake roars,
And an accidental death,
In the final act.

In no man’s land,
Almost every year,
It comes and goes,
Leaving tent marks.

Because of a free pass,
I also went to see,
To find forgotten memories,
But were beyond remembrance.

6) Childhood

6) Childhood
Many memories surround,
Around my village pond,
Filled with dark green waters,
And one half with weeds.

School and to play after,
Scattered all over,
Four different god’s houses
And my punctual mates.

A time when home was a shelter,
Parents my protector,
Every companion a friend,
And any place a playground.

All the teachers cruel,
Every girl untouchable,
And each new day
Dawned with bright hopes.

Don’t remember how,
Got I transformed, now
Ask often god, why did you put
The best of life at first?

But it gave me,
A foundation filled with pleasure,
And to reminisce,
An era of happiness?

5) Burial

5) Burial
As I walked toward sea,
Dark, silent, with quickly
Moving feet,
A funeral procession,
Turned the corner with me.

A black box,
Freshly screwed tight, covered
With white cloth, floated
On shoulders, along with
The rhythmically moving footsteps;
I followed.

Made heavy by dew drops,
Grass blades bent, touched and released,
Their burden on my feet, as I stood,
Alone in the burial grounds, unable to
Wipe out the memories, like tears,
As people did, when they left me,
Standing like the marble slabs
To let dew drops escape to the ground.

I left, trailing behind,
Etching strange patterns,
My unburied coffin.

4) Blackness

4) Blackness
In a spot of darkness,
Changing their forms,
Images appeared,
The more I stared.

A house, a man or trees,
Reflected in the light of stars,
Till ennui took over,
Trying to understand the perceiver.

That vision returned in the night,
Now into a bottomless pit,
It transformed and made me sink,
Rang alarms, but I tried, not to wake.

The body’s weightless feeling,
Giving up of control, without fighting,
But treacherous eyes opened,
Dumping me back in solid bed.

Now without fear I return to the place,
Jump into that spot of darkness,
To explore again my forbidden self,
But bounce back to humdrum life.

3) Atheist

3) Atheist
The wasted hours of praying,
In front of a stone carving,
And other ironical rituals,
Sets afire atheistical spirits.

Every god is a symbol,
And all religions a party, political,
They promise you an asylum or salvation;
Just like others, to stay in contention.

Because your parents, forced
You from your childhood,
Fearing the stigmas of society,
Bond you are with a (religious) party.

Held sacred the ancients, best sellers
Helped by longest ever campaigns,
But from mere followers of it,
Fanatical we’ve become, in spirit.

Compete with science, theories;
Like the world was created in seven days,
Or came through the navel, because of people,
Conditioned like Pavlov’s dogs.

2) Anti-depressant

2) Anti-depressant
Will you ever know
The way you make me feel…
Even the thought of your tears... Makes me feel
Like a raging storm… blind in its fury.

Your absence… makes me feel
Like a scared, lonely child… on a corner.
Your eyes… make me feel
Like a gentle breeze’s heart… on a desert.

Your upward look… makes me feel
Like a fire, burning on… to consume itself.
Your smile… makes me feel
Like the sky… where birds fly.

Your silence... makes me feel
Like earth’s core… where volcanoes erupt.
Your teasing... makes me feel
Like calmness met chaos... and dance.

Your laughter... makes me feel
Like a mirror... be in that frame forever.
Your kind word... makes me feel
Like the morning… in a prayer.

You… make me feel
Like waking up... to dream again,
To find whether you will ever know
The way you make me feel…