Kultar’s Mime – Play Review

“Is there a price for their deaths?  How shall the price be paid?

Sarbpreet Singh’s poem “Kultar’s Mime”, inspired from Haim Bialik’s poem, “In the City of Slaughter”, forms the basis of the play, by the same name, and thus two cultures miles apart, get bound by unforgettable ties, carved in blood.

     http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/51625844

“In the City of Horrors” recounts the horrific pogrom that was organized, targeting the Jewish population of Kishinev, Russia, in 1903.  Eighty one years later, Delhi, capital of India erupted in violence, after the assassination of Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, by her Sikh bodyguards.  In an organized orgy of murder, rape, and arson, more than 3000 Sikh residents in and around Delhi, lost their lives, others lost their homes and their livelihoods, their parents and their siblings, their limbs, their eyes, and their sanity.  “Kultar’s Mime” makes a valiant effort to capture the horrific suffering unleashed upon a community, and succeeds in forming ties across cultures and communities that have endured such pogroms, in history.

If you ever incredulously wonder, “Did it happen?  Did men become such cruel beasts?” and then wonder how can keepers of the law, allow, sanction, and protect organized thugs to run amuck and unleash such pain, then you will find in history, it has happened and happened, time and again.  With evocative lyrics, the play captures it all – “when I walk the streets of Delhi today, I shall see blood mixed with dirt”; “are you so blind, you can’t see”.  Each child, in the town of Tilakvihar, “has a tale to tell, each of these children is a living shell”.

Drawing on the raw imagery of both poems, “Kultar’s Mime” not only tells a powerful story of human suffering and courage, but the incredible cast (Addison Williams, Allison Matteodo, Cathryn Roberts, Christine Scherer, Michelle Finston) of “outsiders” to the community, bring it to life, against a backdrop of striking paintings by Evanleigh Davis.  Each actor tells the story of a child, in addition to playing multiple other roles.  The actors own their characters, and deliver such a moving performance that the play bridges all distance of language, culture, or community.  This is a story of human cruelty, of human suffering, of history that we must remember and learn from; never to repeat it.

I ask you, my brothers….. A poem (dedicated to the #DelhiVictim of gang rape)

Protester Posters and Candles seeking Justice for Gang rape Victim-009 (Photo credit: ramesh_lalwani)

(see information about the occurrence below, under the poem).

Maya Angelou calls me a phenomenal woman
I stand tall, side by side, with a man
Yet, I am powerless in face of violence
There, in place of my wit, all I had was silence

When my life turned upside down
In one bus ride across the town
It took six brute men to silence me for the night
When the darkness ended and I saw the light

“I want to live”, I said, fiercely determined
“I want to see the culprits punished”
I may be beaten, lost my intestines
But I have guts, to nail those swines

With or without you, I shall fight
My confidence doesn’t waver, not slight
Though, I am fighting fevers and infections
I haven’t lost my spirit, I’m telling you in my letters

Will you stand with me, for the sake of all our sisters?
Else, evil will infect everything like blisters
I have love in my heart to win the world over
I have anger in my heart to make the Gods cower

I also have forbearance and patience
I have endured for centuries, this nonsense
Now I ask you, my brothers, to speak for me
Against evil, speak on behalf of me, speak with me.

On December 16, 2012, at 9:30 pm, a young woman and her male friend were attacked in a city bus, in Delhi, India.  The male friend was beaten, and she was gang raped, and brutally sodomized, and then both were left for dead.  Despite loosing her intestines, being on the ventilator, fighting infections, and going through surgeries, this brave woman has not deserted her will to live and her determination to get justice and seeing the culprits punished.  She communicated that through letters.  The poem above is in honor of her spirit.  And for things to change, the men must be as outraged, as women.  (Additionally, here is my another poem, previously dedicated to women http://bit.ly/UUQcmN).

 

Related articles

 

• Hanged India girls ‘were gang raped’
• Girl Brutally Gang-Raped in Delhi; Outpouring of Indian Women’s Rage!
• Girls found hanging after India gang rape
• I ask you, my brothers….. A poem (dedicated to the #DelhiVictim of gang rape)
• India – the G20’s worst place to be a woman: How Bollywood is tackling the country’s rape crisis
• Sisters gang-raped, hung from tree in India