![]() Pulki Joshi who played the sultry Champa was better, although a more mature looking actress would have had a more forceful impact. The lack of clarity in the speech of both these characters made one strain to hear the words. It did not convey the requisite fear and apprehension. The overly trembling speech of Shrabani Mukherjee playing Laxmi, was mechanical. The subtle menace, dialogue delivery and stage presence expected of Sakharam was simply missing in Dr. It lacked the flow necessary to hook an audience. Sadly, for me, this production did not live up to my expectations. Written originally in Marathi, the English adaptation needed good translation and strong performances as is demanded by the characters. Given the 'right' circumstances, all humans can turn aggressive. Tendulkar thus shows that morality is a luxury and that struggle for survival is the truth of the real world. Survival instinct and sexual violence create a situation which turns the aggressive Sakharam and the timid Laxmi into an antithesis of what they are. When Laxmi returns to his house, Sakharam's world unravels. But, she has been tortured sexually and thus needs to be in an alcoholic haze in order to endure Sakharam's sexual demands. Her sensuality helps her wrap Sakharam around her little finger. Her lower-class background makes her frank in her speech, open about her physicality and candid about her choices. ![]() Champa, on the other hand, is a brazen whisper of feministic change in the male-dominated household. We see two women - the gently bred Brahmin female Laxmi, who is a trembling leaf of gratitude and compliance and begins to worship Sakharam like a wife would. Tendulkar's play is about this self-proclaimed hedonistic man and of the drama that sets in when he brings first Laxmi and later Champa into his home. Fidelity for him means that he brings home a successor, only when the earlier one has left. ![]() Sakharam on the contrary believes that he is magnanimous when he gives the women in his life permission to leave, whenever they wish. Subjected to demands on their lives, bodies and minds, there is stoic acceptance of their fate. Unwittingly, we realize what women must undergo in their marital home beneath the facade of respectability. Certain truths of intimate relations are never obvious to outsiders. But in his provocative way, Sakharam questions the hypocrisy of the "bond" of marriage. Sadly, in a world cruel to women, he finds women who are desperate enough to agree to his terms. He is unapologetic about his sexual appetites and is uncontrollably violent during his rages, when he gives the women "what they deserve". In return, they have to perform all the "wifely duties", including sharing their bodies. He brings to his hovel, women who have been "discarded by their husbands" and gives them "a roof over their heads, two saris a year and food in their belly." But, he has no qualms about benefiting from its unfairness. Sakharam Binder is a Brahmin who hates his upbringing and exists in a society which he loathes. Its open avowal of private truths about morality, sex and violence are still as true as the day the play was written. Vijay Tendulkar wrote the play SAKHARAM BINDER, nearly forty years ago and jolted the prudery of Indian society. Understand that your morality is not law." The English film director Derek Jarman had said, "Understand that sexuality is as wide as the sea.
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