A gripping tale that adeptly deals with women and oppression

Director: Nasreen Ishaque
Cast: Sheela Gangimalla, Parul Hirani, Pooja Singh, R Anjum, Asmita Kastha, Aditi Kandapal, Nasreen Ishaque, Seema Kaur
Duration: 70 minutes
Language: Hindi / Urdu
Rating: 3.5/5
Plot: Adapted from Spanish poet and playwright Fredrico Lorca’s popular play The House of Bernarda Alba by litterateur Raghuvir Sahay, Birjees Qadar Ka Kunba is the story of a domineering matriarch, Birjees and her five daughters — Fahmida, Aamila, Kudsiya, Mushtari and Aadila.The play begins with two of Birjees’ housemaids — Baandi and Hasan Baandi — going about their daily chores in the house as they wait for their employer and her daughters to return from the former’s second husband’s funeral. After arriving, the bossy Birjees immediately announces that they will mourn the death for the next one year and asks all her daughters to stay indoors and refrain from wearing flashy clothes and applying make-up, as that’s the tradition of the family. How each of the daughters resort to small acts of rebellion against Birjees’ autocratic rules to find their individuality in a repressive society, forms the crux of the plot.
Review: It’s heartening to see how Sahitya Akademi Award winner Sahay brought the story set in a small Spanish village at the height of the Civil War in 1936 to a Muslim household somewhere in India and moulded it according to societal traditions of the era. He however, didn’t mess with the original theme and managed to highlight the cultural suppression of female sexuality in the Indian context with dialogues which were coarse yet tasteful, colloquial yet stilted. Director Nasreen Ishaque employed a fitting cast. Sheela Gangimalla as Birjees was steely in her approach and managed to bring out the authoritarian aspect of her character neatly. Her strong movements — such as rising up from the chair and raising her stick while delivering dialogues — established her adamant and strong persona well. She was well complimented by the daughters, who credibly stuck to their respective characters that evolved naturally as per demand of their dialogues and flow and Nasreen gave them that space. Aditi Kandpal as Aadila displayed zeal, passion, rebellion and the yearning for freedom of youth, really well with her strong movements and so did Asmita Kastha as Mushtari — the one with a little hunched back. But it was Nasreen herself as Hasan Bandi, who stole the show with her effortless dialogue delivery, and judicious movements on stage. Both Sheela and Nasreens’ exchanges stood out throughout the play and laid the foundation that reigned in all the other characters for a tight staging. Seema Kaur as the senile grandmother, who Birjees keeps locked up in a room fearing embarrassment, added some comic relief to the intense drama.
However, the play faltered in sound design. Especially, in the scene where external voices of paddy field workers singing on their way to work entice the daughters to set foot out of the house, the background score ate away the dialogues. The light play did well to flesh out the backdrop of certain scenes, while the sound design too was apt in most scenes.
Verdict: It would be inappropriate to treat Birjees Qadar Ka Kunba as a mere story of a conservative Muslim household of the bygone era as it has many layers that speak of an array of women’s issues. First and foremost, the play highlights how at times, women upholds the ills of patriarchy (as in the case of Birjees) after being exposed to oppression in the hands of a misogynist society. Then there are issues such as sexual freedom of women and its repression, the frustration and torture of imposed silence and so on. By no means was it an easy play to execute and Nasreen, with all her experience, did a good job in bringing together a fitting cast and got fine performances out of them. Going by the efficient execution, it would be hard to say that this was Nibha Theatre Ensemble’s first production. We hope to see many more such staging from the group in the future.