SHILLONG: A 14-year-old girl who should have been in school now lives an isolated life. She has been detected HIV positive after being repeatedly raped by several men.
Locked inside her room in a shelter home, the rape survivor is perhaps contemplating revenge or suicide. None can imagine what intense darkness clouds her thoughts. Playwright and director Naomi Bhuyan tries to look through the impenetrable darkness and reimagines a life that is forever drowned in despair.
Bhuyan’s new play, Tender Tears, which was staged at Indoor Sports Stadium, Laban on Saturday, is a reflection of the lives and struggles of minor rape victims.
Inspired by true incidents, the play vividly portrays the trauma of a rape survivor, the insensitivity of society and complete failure of the system in providing justice.
Bhuyan’s characters, their struggle to live through the trauma, their desperation to find an end to the darkness and the vengeance are all real. The young actors, many of whom are first-time performers, lived every moment of that condemned life during the hour-long play. The vivid portrayal of the helplessness and expression of the pent-up anger and frustration left the audience stunned.
Tender Tears, which is a production of Bhuyan’s troupe Class Act-Theatre With A Purpose, is unsettling and shocking. It counters the imitation of life that the society tries to present by hiding the filth in it.
Meena Kharkongor, the chairperson of State Commission for Protection of Child Rights, said she was overwhelmed by the acting and the script.
“The POCSO Act ensures that a minor rape victim gets justice at the earliest. But the question remains whether the society is sensitive enough to understand these children’s problems… I think we (SCPCR and Class Act) should collaborate more and take the play to a wider audience comprising judges and lawyers. There is a need for them to watch the play so that they become more sensitive towards those victims,” she added.
The play has been co-directed by Bryan D Wahlang and was in collaboration with Sankardev College, where Bhuyan is an associate professor.
