A Study by Prosenjit Sarkar
Manjula Padmanabhan‘s works are contemporary in both theme and presentation. The major focus of her works is the specific problems encountered by a predominantly urban and modern upper middle class section of Indian society. Her plays deal mainly with the concurrent issues in the Indian society. And her well-known play Lights Out (1986) is also not an exception in this case; it presents the upper middle class urban society in the first half of the 1990’s with all its hypocrisy and self-centred ideas. The play has been considered as a case of urban apathy to rape, modern man’s escapism and so forth.
Padmanabhan depicts a trailer of gang rape onstage intentionally to record the dehumanized reactions of men in Lights Out. The play dramatizes the urban apathy for rape and a total reluctance of involving in such uncivilized incident. The play is based on a real life incident of rape of a woman in open during night in 80’s in the Mumbai suburb. The play portrays a gang rape that could probably and possibly have been stopped by the silent, terrified, sympathetic viewers of the upper middle class urban people watching the crime being committed, but they apathetically remains disregarded to the victims. The whole setting as well as the delineation of characters in the play underlines the apathy of urban men towards women.
The issue of urban apathy to rape is revealed through the conversation between Bhaskar and Leela. The drama introduces an urban middle class couple Leela and Bhaskar in their affluent upper-floor middle class flat. What bothers Leela is that every night in a building under construction next to their house a crime is being committed and shrieks of a woman being molested is heard. Her worry for ongoing crime is clearly seen in her expression: “When you were away on tour, I could not sleep at night! And with all the windows shut with all the curtains drawn, with cotton in my ears – the sound still came through! Even in the children’s room, on the other side of the house, I could hear it!”
The play Lights Out exposes the hypocrisy of the urban middle class society and its indifferent attitude towards the crime, going on in the surroundings. Leela, wife of Bhaskar is seen complaining about the crime happening in the neighbouring building. She persistently requests her husband to call the police to settle the matter but he avoids the idea by saying that they should not bother about these little offences. He reacts coldly and calls her idea of calling police “Rubbish”. Instead of fulfilling his duty as a social being, he suggests to Leela a number of ways to avoid the crime: “Leela, the thing to do is not let them disturb you like this. Pretend they’re not there…” Through indifference of Bhaskar, the dramatist exposes the neglect of duty of a social being in these miserable condition and shows urban apathy to rape.
The apathetic attitude of the police towards the victims of crime is revealed by Bhaskar: “Police generally ignores the complaint… [And] I don’t want to stick my neck out, that’s all.” And this is the main cause why people don‘t approach the police with social concern because the agency entrusted the task of protecting its citizens is devoid of any humanity in general.
Like his friend Bhaskar, Mohan’s attitude insinuates the typical urban middle class mentality which prefers to discuss rather to perform. Mohan is curious to know about the horrible incident rather to help the victim. His apathy towards the victim is revealed in his declaration: “Personally, I’m against becoming entangled in other people’s private lives. Outsiders can never really be the judge of who is right and who is wrong.”
Like Leela, her friend Naina is agonized by the sounds while the men Bhasker and Mohan are fascinated and morbidly curious. Exasperated, Leela finally blasts, “It’s a rape, isn’t it?” But Bhaskar apathetically responds, “She could be a whore, you know!”, since “a decent woman would never be with four men at once!” The bizarre sounds and yearnings of the woman screaming for help, “Let me go! Help me!” are successfully manipulated as the subjects of triviality.
Through the play Lights Out, Manjula Padmanabhan not only exposes growing apathy amongst the so called civilized people but also wants to make audience perceive its evil consequences. The drama successfully achieves its aim and certainly inspires audience not to follow the path, adopted by the characters of the drama. Mahesh Dattani aptly observes it as, “a play that deals with urban dilemma”. It is an ugly face of urban society that has been effectively mirrored through this play.
References: ‘Lights Out by Manjula Padmanabhan (Chandra Lakshmi Ed.)’
Internet Resources: http://impressions.org.in/jul10/ar_neeta.html
http://www.trivenijournalindia.com/manjulapadmanabhanslightsoutoct2007.htm
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