By Anil Raturi (IPS, Retd)
On 19 April 2025, a full house at Singapore’s “KC Arts Centre” witnessed a remarkable theatrical performance in Hindi. It was the play “Charulata”, directed by the talented Singaporean of Indian origin, Gauri Shrivastava Gupta.
The play is based on Tagore’s timeless Bengali story “Noshto Needha” (The Broken Nest). Satyajit Ray had used the same story for his iconic Bengali screen adaptation “Charulata” in 1964. The play is uniquely significant in two ways.
First, it creatively adapts the classic Bengali story into Hindi and thereby provides a fresh perspective to the tale through a “new linguistic and cultural lens bridging communities!”
Secondly, “the play oscillates between two timelines, the present day, where a couple struggles with challenges of working from home during the [Covid] pandemic and pre-Independent India, where the complex relationships between Charulata, Bhupati and Amal unfold.”
In the original Bengali story, “Noshto Needha,” Tagore evocatively brings out the predicament of a nineteenth century educated, intelligent, and cultured woman who is trapped in a lonely marriage. She is an aspiring “New Woman”, whose husband is kind, yet, who remains emotionally unavailable. The neglect felt by her and the need for an identity, tragically compels the emotionally strong female to transcend the family confines of patriarchy!
Tagore and Ray were both influenced by the Bengali Bramho Samaj, a movement that distilled the ancient Upanishadic wisdom with modern humanism.
This “Renaissance” ushered in the “Thinking Woman”, who time and again seems to reach an intersection where true emancipation and the familiar lines of tradition meet and collide!
Despite the strides made in the field of women’s empowerment, the formidable challenges faced by the nineteenth century “Charulata” continue to remain relevant for the contemporary aspiring “New Woman” even today!
Gauri Shrivastava Gupta’s Hindi play “Charulata” manifests the evolved Indian value of humanism that Tagore and Ray celebrated.
The distilled wisdom of ancient Indian Upanishads culled out the value of “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam” – (Sanskrit phrase meaning “The world is one family”).
The Indian Diaspora in Singapore continues to carry the torch of Indian culture’s humanising soft power, something that Tagore’s “Internationalism” represents.
Gauri’s play has received rave reviews in Singapore. Bharoti Pandey, a retired English professor, says, “Gauri brilliantly runs the story in two parallel frames by lighting up the part of the stage her story is focusing on and leaving the other part in darkness: British Calcutta 1859 or Indian-Singapore 2021. The perfect sets (colonial furniture on one side and laptops and frames of Marina Bay Sands on the other) make both eras come dramatically alive.
This parallel treatment makes Tagore’s old theme timeless and global. Gauri’s rendition of Charulata reemphasises that compatibility and shared interests are essential for marital harmony and joy.
In today’s world, when the hubris of human beings embroils them in insidious selfish methods, Tagore’s enduring humanism exemplified by the Upanishadic “Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinah” –“May all beings become happy…” is a wise prescription for the emancipation of humanity in general and women in particular!
7th May was Tagore’s birthday. He was born in 1861.
Gauri Shrivastava Gupta’s play is yet another tribute to the great man’s enduring legacy of humanism!
(Anil Raturi is a retired IPS officer and former DGP, Uttarakhand)
