Ghotbhar pani

First performed for a competition in 1978, Ghotbhar Pani (A sip of water) was written against a background of the urban middle-class concerns that dominated, and continue to dominate, Marathi theatre. Even when theatre was experimenting with folk forms, as seen most notably in Vijay Tendulkar's Ghashiram Kotwal, the themes still revolved around the concerns of the haves as opposed to the have-nots. As such, when 30-year-old Premanand Gajvi, two generations down from Tendulkar, wrote Ghotbhar Pani, he faced the challenge of giving voice to the concerns of the oppressed that had never found their place in this theatre. The play was like water to the thirsty, and was performed in villages all over Maharashtra. Its 1000th playing was staged in Bombay in 1993, 15 years after it was written.

(The curtain rises. Two youths appear. The midday sun burns overhead. The exhausted young men are panting for shade but everything around is barren, desolate, stunted. The grass, dried yellow, glints in the sun.)