A sputtering, desecrated human heart. Glistening in fresh blood, trembling at the violence of its sudden extraction. Wrenched out from the bottom of the bleeding chasm between two youthful breasts. And then thrown to dogs.

This is the image that haunts me. This is not an al-Jazeera camera feed prowling the streets of Basra. This is, rather, my initial gut reaction to the play "I Am Mou," written by Paul Knox and performed at Wellesley College on April 4th and 5th 2003 – a proud joint production with the socially proactive peoples of SAATh (South Asian American Theatre) and the passionately dedicated ladies of WASAC (Wellesley Association for South Asian Cultures). My own heart was wrenched outside the confines of my mundane physicality and thrown, not to dogs, but into the eager company of talented, creative, and compassionate theatre affecionados/as determined to make a heartwrenching statement about the contemporary predicament of South Asian queers.

My newfound role as Publicity Director of SAATh had initially prompted me to take up the script of “Mou,” to be read before our round of auditions. With luck, I had picked out “Mou” first, which effectively rendered me incapable of tackling the other two scripts for an entire day hence. Frida Kaalo-esque surrealness descended upon my mental landscape as the image of the blood-spattered heart flickered oft in my mind. The play really did wonders to the way I perceive the world.

“I Am Mou” is the story of a woman who was denied her own voice to tell her own story. A bit of a background: In 1998, Palm Avenue Integration Society, a health awareness initiative for youth and sexual minorities in Calcutta, received an anonymous letter signed only as “NP.” The letter, subsequently forwarded to the playwright, told of NP’s love affair with another woman named “Moumita,” the new young governess to her two children, and the tragic outcome of their love impelled by societal forces intolerant of same-sex relationships. In the tragic play, Mou is gang-raped and brutally murdered by goondahs hired by N (=NP)'s husband P. N is marital-raped by P and psychologically murdered by P's news of Mou's murder, which promptly sets her to kill herself with the very blade that took Mou's life.

In “I Am Mou,” Knox compellingly incorporates the tortured, true-to-life words of “NP” into the devastating story of N as she simultaneously discovers salvation in her true love for Mou and plummets to her own destruction, even as her husband desperately seeks to remedy his married life at the expense of Mou. This intimate glimpse into the unraveling household of a well-to-do doctor takes place in the present somewhere in Bengal. The ambiguity of the setting speaks both to the ubiquity of such tragedies in South Asia, and to the respect afforded by the playwright to the dead “NP” and to her sisters who survived the terrible loss.

“Eating Jain,” on the other hand, is a more wistful, subtle sort of tragedy. The story unfolds on a train from Calcutta to Puri, and celebrates a joyous reunion of two lovers hailing from disparate corners of the earth – New York City and Calcutta – portraying their love as a sublime antidote to the stifling restrictions placed on them by their cultures and traditions. Bobby, on the one hand, confesses to having led a carefree yet close-circuited “gay Chelsea boy” life before meeting Mahvi and falling in love. After spending a few cherished weeks together, Bobby awakens to a new world order inspired by Jainism, and comes to India in pursuit of his true love. Mahvi, on the other hand, is deeply concerned with filial responsibility and a societal duty to carry on his family name. Mahvi believes he should pursue the “path” that was afforded to him by fate – even if this means relinquishing his love for Bobby and marrying a woman of his parents’ choosing. When pressed with the absurdity of his imminent marriage to an unsuspecting woman never unattainable of his love, Mahvi quietly explains to Bobby, "No Bobby, YOU're gay. I'm just a man who loves man." The rift between them is subtle, yet unfathomable. Bobby and Mahvi are left staring out at the angry seas of Orissa from their shared sleeper compartment, looking at the same and not the same sea.

“Tara Tara Didi” means, in Hindi, "Hurry Up Sister." The title has no relation to the play, except that it saved the play from publicity mayhem by sharing the selfsame title with an immensely popular contemporary film called "Monsoon Wedding." "TTD," as it came to be endearingly known, is an uproarious farce crafted entirely in rhyme except for a few strategic deviations, and follows the developments of twin marriages in Bombay from a decidedly comical perspective. The play revolves around two mismatched couples fated to marry on the same day in houses adjacent to one another. The two unhappy brides, Aysha and Ashu, and Rabi and Ravi, the two equally discontented grooms-to-be, resolve their conundrum by tying same-sex and – in the latter case – incestuous marriage bonds.

The supporting characters are goofy and more than a bit sketchy: there is Indira, the (in)famous widowed match-maker who curses the Indian skies above for concealing the truth; there is Mr. Singh, who sings and prays and smiles his benign obsequious service to his young mistress Aysha; and there is the troupe of ‘sistah’ Hijrahs named Lata, Sharbhani, Wheatisha, and Durga led by mother Hijrah Cyrus, who concoct a tale about one legendary Habhah, Gilah, and Venis Mecha, which ends up sounding awfully like “Hava nagila venismekha’ ( a Jewish traditional wedding song). With hilarious good cheer, the play dissipates (though not entirely) the tragic bitterness of its two antecedents and proclaims that love comes in all different forms, shapes, and rhyming abilities.

By the time I finally finished reading through “Eating Jain” and “TTD,” I was wriggling my fingers in jittery anticipation of meeting this yet faceless playwright who elicited simultaneously horrifying and invigorating emotions out of this humble reader. And this was before I even witnessed it being brought to dramatic life by a team of awe-inspiring actors!br>
To be continued …

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