Drama and real life

PUNE: After giving four full house performances at Mumbai���s Prithvi theatre, Sangli���s commercial sex workers (CSWs) are ready to take the city by storm with their maiden performance here at 9.30 pm on June 15 at Bharat Natya Mandir.
The play titled, ���My Mother, The Gharwali, Her Maalak, His Wife��� sheds light on the daily experiences of CSWs. ���It very candidly shows what goes on between them and the police, the politicians, the society at large, the local goons and their own partners,��� says Pune-based theatre artist Sushama Deshpande, who has directed the play.���We devise our scripts according to the ideas generated by these women through constant interaction.���
Sex workers and their sons, all members of Sangram ��� a Sangli-based collective of CSWs ��� will act in the 70-minute drama, which opens with a daughter���s perspective on her mother���s ���profession���. The enactment highlights the routine incidents that take place within a span of 24 hours in a ���galli��� inhabited by sex workers.
Sharing her acting experiences Durga Pujari, head of Veshya Anyay Mukti Parishad (VAMP), an off-shoot of Sangram, says that though she faced problems initially, she now sees it as a platform for expressing her thoughts. ���It took us a while to learn the basics of theatre acting. But we are now able to voice our feelings about our life, profession and experiences.���
The idea for a play was born at a theatre workshop and brainstorming session with CSWs who are members of Sangram. In March 2004, almost 75 women, actively engaged in prostitution, and their teenage sons assembled in Sangli for a workshop on theatre. This was the beginning of their journey of self-expression, which helped these teenagers understand their mothers better.
���Sons of CSWs were quite a neglected lot. They would find it difficult to acknowledge what their mothers did. But now, they���ve learnt to accept it. Some of them left their education and started working with Sangram as volunteers. They now look after the younger children of other sex workers and accept, without an ounce of shame, the work their mothers do,��� says Deshpande, who has been working closely with Sangram for quite some time now.
Besides helping these women open up, Sangram���s activities in Sangli over the past 15 years have helped people accept them as a part of the social fabric. Kamalabai Paane, who���s been in the profession for almost 30 years now says, ���Earlier, we would be abused openly by society and the law-makers. But now, things are very different. Now the cops too take permission before entering our territory. There���s a lot more respect now.���
The play has been organised by Sangram, Veshya Anyay Mukti Parishad (VAMP), an off-shoot of Sangram, and Point of View, a Mumbai-based non-profit organisation that promotes women���s points of view through media, art and culture.