An Easter with nine-part desire

On Easter Sunday, kids brought up in the cosmopolitan tradition will look forward to Easter eggs brought by the Easter bunny. It’s great to see that there is a confectionery at Dak Bungalow that has kept up the tradition of creating colourful Marzipan Easter eggs filled with little ‘surprises’, for over half a century. The shop is favoured particularly by members from the Anglo-Indian community who shop for their hot-cross buns (usually eaten to break the Good Friday fast, or for breakfast on Holy Saturday) and for Easter Eggs.
Gaily painted boiled eggs adorn the breakfast table at Easter. Grandmothers who can still wield a creative spoon come up with eggs made of chocolate fudge. Some families exchange Easter eggs, others gift an Easter egg to visitors. In Patna, you can buy Marzipan eggs in three sizes: large for Rs 150, medium for Rs 100, and small for Rs 80.
Why the egg? It’s a symbol of new life. New life emerges breaking the shell, so it is in a way a representation of the resurrection: Jesus emerging from the tomb, alive once again.
The Easter weekend has brought cheer to theatre lovers, thanks to the efforts of Patna’s own Souvik Narain, the man responsible for bringing us the thespian performances of the inimitable Lillete Dubey and the Prime time Theatre Company in Mahesh Dattani’s ‘30 days of September’. The play has been staged over 200 times in India and abroad. The play held a mirror to an aspect of society that most want glossed over: incest and sexual abuse within the home.
An early Islamic leader, Ali ibn Abu Taleb, said “God created sexual desire in ten parts; then he gave nine parts to women and one to men.” Today, at the Premchand Rangshala, TV host and actress Ira Dubey performs Heather Raffo’s iconic play ‘9 parts of Desire’, where she will play nine Iraqi women. Their stories are about the survival and struggle of women in a war-torn, repressive country; it shows how politics and situations not in your control can easily change your life forever.
Souvik, who has worked at theatre productions and event management nationally, has returned to Bihar. “Happy to know that Souvik is an old boy of Loyola High School, where I studied,” said Aaryan Ghimire, a college student who was at the theatre on Saturday. “Patna desperately needs English language theatre, and world class theatre. It’s a happy coincidence that an organization named ‘East and West’ has presented the show. If we youngsters have to develop intellectually, we need to be exposed to the cultural traditions of both East and West,” he said.
Sonali, currently doing a bachelor’s degree in Mass media, was touched by the fact that both the plays explore a woman’s perspective. She said, “This sort of theatre is an education and should be widely seen by parents and young adults. It can help us look honestly at ourselves and not just spread some hype and slogans about how great our culture is!”
“I think it’s great timing for Easter”, said a friend, adding, “the plays help us reflect on the renewal of society at a time when we observe the renewal of spirituality. I saw the play on Holy Saturday, and the midnight Mass with its theme of liberation became pregnant with meaning: I prayed sincerely for the all those kids living in dangerous homes, the many hidden ‘Miras’ of society”. (Mira is the protagonist of 30 days of September).