City artistes to pay tribute to Delhi braveheart

City-based theatre group Swatantra Theatre is working on a play that aims to pay tribute to the Delhi gangrape victim.

Initiated by Yuwaraj Shah, 'Mashaal Jalao Diya Se...a tribute to Damini', a play directed and designed by Abhijeet Choudhary and written by Dhanashree Heblikar and her team, is in the production stage and will be staged in the second week of February.

"The whole world has been shaken by the incident. As normal human beings, the Delhi rape case has caused us a deep pain and agony. We, as a group of artistes, wanted to do something for the women suffering from sexual crimes, highlighting the overall situation of women in the country," says Choudhary.

He says though the play

will be based on the Delhi gangrape case, it will have some fictional elements too.

"Each time I got into a discussion related to the Delhi rape case, I learnt that most people want an extremely severe punishment for the accused and do not want to see them merely hanged. They want the country to set an example by giving them the harshest punishment possible, beyond death penalty, so that in future any man thinks a hundred times before committing such heinous crimes," adds the director. The play will also incorporate data and information for the viewers about laws followed by other countries in case of rape," says Choudhary.

Heblikar, who plays one of the lead characters in the play, says the story could be of any woman. It begins with the story of small girl, who grows up with dreams in her eyes. She comes across several men who try to take advantage of the fact that she is the weaker sex.

"A rapist does not have a face. He could be anyone, an uncle, a brother, a grandfather or even your father. We want to highlight this very problem of the society," says Choudhary.

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