Uncivilised Daughters & Viraag 2016 Play - India Habitat Center

DIRECTOR : Sana Thapa, Naval Garg, Shobhit Agarwal

Uncivilised Daughters
Uncivilised Daughters raises questions about women's sexuality, their bodies, and attempt to understand the internalized oppression and the cultural conditioning with which women are forced to live.
From being castigated for wearing particular kinds of dresses to eating particular kinds of food, women are always made to feel uncomfortable and uneasy about their body and in turn their sexuality. Her body becomes the site of the family's honor. To the extent that she is responsible for whatever happens to her body, it is considered her duty to protect it. She carries this burden from the moment she is born to her death. Her body thus becomes a double-edged sword, one that she can neither leave nor can she live in it. But she has to exist in the same body. Her rebellion gives rise to a conflict which in turn gives birth to 'uncivilised daughters'.

Viraag
The play explores the lack of communication that occurs between people who have no shared language and culture. The ease with which two friends look at a third person, who is different from them, as a 'lesser' being even to the extent of denying him a shared humanity is explored in our play through the use of two languages, one of which is intended to be inaccessible to the audience as well.
In other words, despite its use of two languages, our play uses monolingual as a method of providing audiences a direct experience of the alienation that results when communication breaks down. That the two protagonists are themselves 'outsiders' to their own environment provides an ironical twist and a violent conclusion.