ABOUT THE PLAY… SONG OF THE LOOM
Song of the Loom written by Sabita Radhakrishna, is about the travails of the handloom weaver. For purposes of convenience, the play is set in a fictitious village Arivoor which is in Tamil Nadu. There two families, the retired IAS officer Tilak and his wife Sundari and their daughter Dikshita. They are a stark contrast to the other family, Kulasekhara the Master Weaver, his belligerent wife Ponni and their son Kandan, a young weaver who has turned to the industry for a living.
Tilak is passionate about textiles, and continues to help the weavers at Arivoor with design intervention and overseeing quality in weaving. He wishes that the weavers should feel the same passion and should not compromise on quality on any account. He nurtures a deep friendship with Kulasekhara the Master Weaver who is driven to despair because of poverty, lack of work, and listening to the woes of the weavers of Ariyoor who look upon him as a leader. To Kulasekhara, Tilak is a demi God, a mentor whose advice he values.
Sundari, Tilak’s wife is wrapped up in her children’s lives and her sons in US and worries about her daughter not being “settled” yet to a suitable young man. She feels that Tilak is too involved in his work with the weavers as he was when he was in service neglecting the family and his duties to them. Ponni has utter contempt for Kulasekhara in his “mindless” obedience to Tilak. The Government tries to help by offering to engage the weavers to participate in the low cost sari and dhothi scheme if they form co-operatives. Since the products would be distributed to all persons below poverty level, it would be an ongoing process and work would be assured. Since there is no question of quality or design, it would be easy to make a living where continuity of work is assured. This enrages Tilak, who feels quality cannot be compromised and he tries his best to influence Kulasekhara not to form co-operatives which is one of the stipulations by the State Government. He envisions the collapse of the scheme and fears for the weavers.
Dikshita who is a textile graduate from Baroda is in Arivoor to research and submit her thesis. She is as passionate over textiles as is her father and the two share a special bond. Kandan eldest son of Kulasekhara and Ponni is a very committed lad, and a very gifted weaver and worked hard to bring out the finest of weaves at the same time studied hard not only to complete his schooling but his engineering. He leaves his weaving profession and turns to industry just to feed his family.
Poverty places the weavers on the horns of a dilemma and Kulasekhara finally succumbs to forming co-operatives and accepting to weave the free saris and dhothis much to Tilak’s disgust knowing that they would weave without thought of excellence. The play brings out the turmoil between practicality and idealism and the interaction between the two classes of society, and their relationships.
The tension leads to the climax and the 1400 people who saw the play went home with a new found awareness of the plight of the weavers and were aghast at the stark realities of the situation.
Cast: Ammu Chaterji, Shankar Sundaram, Amira Shetty, P.C. Ramakrishna, S.Vidyuth, Namrata Kartik, Mohammed Yusuf, Arun Balachandra, Hariher, Pradeepa Siddharth, Divya Ramesh, Swetha Balakrishnan.