When the lockdown was suddenly announced I, like most people, had no idea of how long we would be shut down or the absolutely tragic proportions it would take in India. The shutting down of the historic Shaheen Bagh protest site was almost like the government seized on a global emergency as an opportunity to settle an ideological score that it had been sorely losing. In the midst of a pandemic, the authorities found the time and resources to wipe out graffiti of dissent, as if it was more dangerous and contagious than the virus. For all its rhetoric of national unity to ram the CAA through, the insincerity of the government’s commitment to the common Indian was revealed soon after, as the poorly planned, poorly executed lockdown left millions in deep economic, social and psychological distress. The lockdown revealed the utter emptiness of the government’s ideology.
Ajay Krishnan’s 2005 play “Butter and Mashed Banana” is a satire on the emptiness of ideologies, and the many ways in which freedom of speech can be threatened. This strange and distancing time felt like a good moment to look at it again. I decided to revisit it but in the form of a radio play.
Why in the style of a radio play? Why not a video reading? For one, a radio play can be a complete theatrical production in a way that a video reading usually is not. Because a video is geared towards capturing something of the live experience, but that electricity, that scale and that liveness, cannot easily be captured on video, unless it is literally treated as a piece of filmmaking. Whereas a radio play is already a recorded experience, with production work, editing and so on—so it is a natural form for the digital era. And as performance venues are now under immense pressure, first to toe the dominant ideological line, and second to adhere to what are likely to be very demanding health and safety practices, audio seems a natural form to move towards, to tell the stories that need to be told.
I love how radio demands that we use a sense other than sight, how our bodies lean forward when we listen to the radio, how worlds and spaces are created from hearing a story and how it can reach so many people who might not otherwise choose to experience theatre. We had many listeners who had never been to the theatre write in to tell us how much they enjoyed the play, and what a relief it was not to have to look at a screen. And usually, a radio play, broadcast on a radio channel to listeners, is also much more accessible than regular plays, whose tickets are growing increasingly unaffordable to many.
It truly seems like a medium and form that is bursting with potential for creativity and new stories, and that potential is only just beginning to get tapped. Perhaps, the lockdown has left us with a gift that we must nurture.