Bhediya the Play Creating a New Medley

When we first start watching the play Bhediya (written by Dinesh Agarwal and devised and directed by Binod Sharma and Hema Bhist) you feel that too many complex ideas are at interplay. What remains interesting at the core of the direction is that the farrago of complexities come together well in the end. One realizes soon interestingly that the script is in chapter formations, i.e. one chapter instead of leading to the next, had an end to itself while in the end all themes merge to highlight the main theme.

At the core this play talks about the restrictions that the society places on women, it ranges from a young girl ( Prithi, played by Rajni) getting raped by her boyfriend whose hapless parents show their true plight and loss ; the activist Malti Malini (Meenakshi Naithani) and the misogynistic reactions towards her, the ever presence of the television anchor and correspondent ( played by Aditya Deshwal and Sheel Kalia) who only wants to increase their TRP despite the occurrence of wild allegations made by the other panelists the submissive Iyer and the pontiff of all society’s bearing, the algebra baba ( Vyom Gupta).

At the other end of the spectrum, we see a Bhediya (Mohit) or a wolf that is roaming in the village of drunk Maheswar Mahto (Dinesh Agarwal) who is unable to protect his grandchild Nanku (Tanuj), or even his own jobless son Mangarua (Nitesh Raghav) from the clutches of this preying animal. The heart wrenching scene of losing her child, husband and father-in-law is witnessed by Chameli (played by Richa Arora) which is only used again to as piece of news item by Bhatuknath (Sheel Kalia).

We see the play ending in a huge climatic wave of voices of strong female powers that emerge to create a huge medley. The grand opus thus is to destroy all the grave concerns of society against the females. What remains as a point of interest is the way the grave ideas are displayed and enacted, which the director, Binod Sharma cleverly used in a sequential order with small scenes and larger scenes and an opus of females in the end.

Instead of using a single point of reference in the script, Dinesh Agarwal has intertwined many ideas, the rape of Rajni and the devastation of her mother Madhvi ( Nishta Sharma) and father Sadashay ( Jitender Singh); the everlasting huge presence of the media; the attack of a real wolf on a small child of a rural village depicting the plight of the villagers and in the finality the waving rise of womanhood in itself.

What impressed me was the use of televised narrations and the interaction of multimedia projected screens in the play. A special word must be given to Jitender Singh (Sadashay) and Nitesh Raghav (Mangarua) who pulled the act with great command of their acting skills as they had little dialogues. Little Nanku and Tanuj were a delight to watch, and Hema Bhist, Richa Arora and Nishta Sharma pulled me in their act.

Only one needs to look attentively at the technical of play as the lighting was choppy and so was the blocking too much centered. The stage could have been used in multiple formations despite the use of a projected screen. The songs could also have been used more appropriately with lights as well as the use of actors. Overall, the play Bhediya is indeed a good watch, and it brings a difference in style of scripting and direction. It marks a new way of looking at theatre and hence one should watch it as a mark of contemporary Indian Drama.