It's tough to be an antagonist in a play, especially, when you loathe the character. But if you can't convince yourself, will you be able to move an audience? Theatre actor Dakxin Chhara faced a similar conundrum 21 years ago, when he took on the role of Ashok Roy, a tainted officer involved in the custodial death of Budhan Sabar. Sabar was a member of the Kheria Sabar community, a de-notified tribe (DNT), i.e., tribes that were originally listed under the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871, in Purulia, West Bengal, who had been arrested in February 1998, on the charge of robbery.

Chhara himself belongs to a DNT, the Chharas, who hail from Chharanagar in Ahmedabad. Playing Roy, however, was not as significant as the fact that Chharanagar, which had lived with the stigma of being a criminal hell-hole, was on the brink of scripting history. On August 31, 1998, the anniversary of the de-notification, Chhara and his team, performed their first play under a newly-formed theatre group, Budhan Theatre - named after Sabar - in their town.