Komal Theatre’s Awal Pyar Shakti depicts how women struggle to handle themselves in a patriarchal society
Komal Theatre’s Awal Pyar Shakti depicts how women struggle to handle themselves in a patriarchal society
Despite innumerable discussions and developments, the fight to empower women continues. Dharini Komal’s play Aval Pyaar Shakti (who won several awards in the Kodai play Viza), deals with the struggles of four generations of women in a family.
Janani and her husband Karthik are IT professionals. While Janani helps with work and home, Kartik concentrates only on his work and avoids his responsibilities at home. Frustrated with handling it alone, Janani decides to relocate from Bengaluru to Chennai along with her daughter along with her parents, grandmother and sister.
face challenges
The play moves from one woman to another without any hindrances and focuses on their attitude towards marriage and its many challenges. For example, Harini (Janaani’s sister) detests the idea of arranged marriages. He finds it ridiculous that a girl or a boy can decide on his life partner during a brief meeting between two families.
Janani’s mother has taken VRS to take care of her old mother-in-law. She thinks it is her duty as her mother-in-law had a great support, who helped her run the household. The old lady, despite belonging to the conservative set, remains optimistic in every situation.
The family is shocked when Janani decides to separate from Kartik, and Harini opts for a live-in arrangement with the proposed groom, Arjun, to better understand her before giving her consent for the marriage. The drama deals with how the family comes to terms with these modern relationship issues.
The play is written and directed by Dharini Komal. While it is always a pleasure to watch a play live on stage (Hansdhwani, Adyar), the challenge for a group is not to be over-dramatic. Well-written production could have made a better impression with more brevity. At some points the dialogues were based on discourse. Karthik’s friend mentors him and Arjun inspires Harini to pursue an art form to find balance in life, scenes like these were appreciable.
The sound system was off-kilter in many places; A problem that is easily fixed with the best audio systems now available.
The Chennai-based critic writes on art and culture.