Lending voice to the unheard

Thiruvananthapuram: Three years of life in a remote village at Murshidabad in West Bengal, witnessing the stark realities in the lives of transgender people, was what made Ayon Joardar to take up the role of Pintu in the Bengali play ‘Santaap’.
Every day Ayon and the team of artists would be witness to the group of ‘hijdas’ who visit neighbourhoods and dance with the kids only to come back home and sit in groups to weep all through the evening lamenting over the fact that they will never be able to become mothers.
The play, which explores the untold stories of the transgender community, is inspired from Manab Chakraborty’s novel ‘Santaap’. Santaap is the only play, which is based on the lives of transgender people, being staged at the National Theatre Festival.
“We had tried to step into their shoes, tread their paths, dined and slept alongside them and watched their movements intensely for three years to understand their lives and thoughts. Being one with them helped me a lot in enacting the role of Pintu. As I started imbibing their behaviour traits, I started experiencing the change from within,” said Ayon Joardar, who is acting in the play directed by Sandip Bhattacharya.
According to director Sandip Bhattacharya, ‘Santaap’ unravels the untold stories of the dark and deprived lives of the transgender population, who are pushed to the margins and forced to turn into ganja peddlers and sex workers. “The main motive behind making such a play based on transgender people is to try and change the perceptions of the society and make them accept these people as human beings. They are already deprived of any love or compassion; at least they should be treated with minimum respect. The government had made special provisions for jobs and incentives for the disabled people, but the transgender community is devoid of that as well. I am extremely happy that one year after our play was first staged, they received voting rights,” he said.
The award winning play is scripted by Koushik Chattopadhyaya and it tells the real life stories of the slum dwellers of Murshidabad in West Bengal. The play was staged for the first time in 2011 and had received much acclaim from the audience across the nation since then. Entry is free for the 130-minute-long play ‘Santaap’, which will be staged at 5.45pm at the Tagore Theatre on Tuesday.