I have been trying to catch up with the Madras Players – an oldest English drama troupe’s plays online. That’s a special offer for the COVID lock down. The one that I enjoyed most was water – but could not complete the series. Each play was on the YouTube for 3 days. I got to complete watching the 2^nd play – chudamani – an anthology of different women – we encounter in our lives – mother, aunt, widowed friends, remarried niece, to-be-bride, probably a spinster struggling to take care of her blind father.

Each actor came out with their best performance – but the first story of 2 fathers belonging to two different ends of a spectrum was the best. ‘My wife wears only silk’ – a father’s statement with a tinge of pride and ‘oh, you live in Bombay’, with a submissive gesture by the other father justifies their viewpoint of their daughter’s wedding.

And, “I secured my son-in-law for Rs. 4 lakhs,’ was an even excellent dialogue used at the right time of the story to subtly show the dowry system that was prevalent then. The best was the last play where the bride-to-be compromises so many things for the sake of her marriage. The reality hits her that with compromising – she might turn out to be another version of her docile mother (who has no identity of her own) to take a firm stand by saying no to compromises and retaining her self-respect – more for herself than for others.