‘Aboriginal Cry’: A play about voices waiting to be heard
Victor Thoudam’s poignant play, all set to be performed as part of the annual India Habitat Theatre Festival, is about the pain of people displaced across Manipur
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Director Victor Thoudam’s play Aboriginal Cry is extremely pertinent to the times. Every other day news emerges of fresh violence between the Meitei and Kuki tribes in Manipur, with visuals of tension and unrest. At such a time, Thoudam looks at the cry, the plea of the indigenous people of the state. “It’s a cry to tell the system that they should understand and respect the culture of the people living on this land and how they relate to this land," says Thoudam. “It is the cry of the people whose voices are not being heard."
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The play was first staged in January at the Jawaharlal Nehru Manipur Dance Academy in Imphal, and is now part of the annual India Habitat Theatre Festival (on till 29 September) in Delhi. A note from the festival curators describes Aboriginal Cry as an exploration of the hardships of displaced people and communities affected by six mega dams in Manipur. “The benefits from these dams are still highly questionable despite spending huge amounts of money. The hardship of the people affected by these projects is explored through a poetic body, making the invisible visible," it reads.
The 39-year-old director who hails from Imphal, Manipur, has a history of creating powerful theatrical pieces. His earlier piece, The Departed Dawn (2022) won in three categories at last year’s Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Awards, including an award for best actor in a lead role for him. While The Departed Dawn delved into the global refugee crisis, Aboriginal Cry gets closer home by bringing to the fore the challenges faced by the indigenous people in the name of development. Thoudam says that a number of dams lie defunct today, and many other such projects have failed.
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He cites the instance of the Mapithel Dam, which was constructed and officially inaugurated in December 2020 in spite of protests by the locals, and which has reportedly submerged forests, cultivable land and grazing grounds, and affected the lives of people in nearly 22 villages. Thoudam feels that it is always the common man that suffers. Manipur, he believes, could have been a symbol for India. “So many ethnic communities have been living here together without any conflict for years. However, in a matter of a few years, everything has fallen apart."
The play, he believes, is also a call for people to come together and make their voices heard without resorting to violence and bloodshed. “Sometimes, you just have to cry out of pain together. Theatre is one means of doing it; writing is another," says the director. “We need to talk about harmony. We need to talk about culture. We need to talk about our bonding, and our relation to the land and its people. We need to push these ideas in these hard times."
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Like The Departed Dawn, Aboriginal Cry is also a non-verbal exploration through sound and the body, of the indigenous people’s relationship with land, rituals and culture. For Thoudam, who has trained in physical theatre, everything starts from the body. “There’s a lot of movement before I even utter a word. So, I am more interested in focusing on that movement," he states. And when one talks about the body, he adds, one cannot separate sound from it. “The sound is a part of the body. It is very much needed."
On 29 September at The Stein Auditorium, India Habitat Centre, Delhi, 7pm.
Deepali Dhingra is a Delhi-based art and culture writer.
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