Three women alight at the buzzing railway station to make it big in the city. Will they be able to tame this urban beast? Find out at a performance that draws from a poetry collection
No problem, the British shrugged/ And so started Mission: Reverse Atlantis/ Bang! One dam here. Bang! One more there/ and the tide was firmly fastened/ behind a red tape of dykes and bollards./ And let that tape now form a carpet/ of the bodies of migrant labourers/ And let those bodies compost/ into fertile green peninsula/ and let the merchants — Gujaratis, Jews — come trade their hard-earned wares/ and let us now stand and call it/ our India, our Bombay.
Mumbai Central railway terminus plays a crucial location in the play
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That's the story of Bombay's genesis, told by a poet who arrived here from London three years ago, and stayed back. Eloise Stevens' ruminations about her new home became part of her poetry collection, The Beat of Beast, which was shortlisted for The Great Indian Poetry Collective and the Melita Hulme prize. An Oxford University alumna, she will now present a performance of her writings, through spoken word and song, and a generous sprinkling of satire, this Friday. The performance, also called The Beat of Beast, unfolds through the stories of three women — Zainab, a domestic help; Arundhati, an NRI; and Freddi, an expat — who land on the Mumbai Central platform, hoping to make it big in the city. "The performance, essentially a play that is more descriptive than an average theatre piece, is quite autobiographical. Women from all social and economic strata come to Mumbai to make a living. While some have few options available to them to survive here, others are luckier. But despite these differences, there are experiences that unite us," says Stevens.
A scene from Beat of the Beast
The common experiences she refers to range from the theme of identity to the sexual harassment women are subjected to. A verse in the performance poignantly paints the picture of being groped in the local train — something both Arundhati and Zainab have gone through and share in a moment of camaraderie. That said, the play being a satire has its fair share of funny moments. When, for instance, Zainab asks Freddi, "What the hell have you put paneer with the watermelon for? You lied, you don't know how to cook!" unable to grasp the marriage of watermelon and feta in a salad.
Eloise Stevens
"Through the stories of these women, I have tried to explore the idea of marriage and career in a metropolis," says Stevens, who took the poetic route to discover the city on foot earlier this year, when she conducted a dramatised heritage walk in Kala Ghoda around places Arun Kolatkar had written about in his poems. "Women can be really resourceful — a quality that lend itself wonderfully to the pace of this city."
ON: November 3, 8 pm and November 4, 7 pm)
AT: The Cuckoo Club, Bandra West.
CALL: 96199 62969
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