The Woman Who Said No: Antigone In India

The National School of Drama in Delhi is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a mega theater festival. Yesterday, I went to see their adaptation of Antigone at the Kamaani auditorium. Beyond knowing that the play was about a woman who dies in her attempt/ wish to bury her brother, I wasn't familiar with the original play, so I probably missed some nuances of the adaptation. Still, it was an intense, interesting evening.

Easily the most powerful part of the night was the conversation between Creon and Antigone once Antigone has been discovered; Naseeruddin Shah and Ratna Pathak Shah, who played Creon and Antigone respectively, really brought that scene alive. I can still hear Antigone's taunt: I don't have to listen to you, because you said "yes" (to the crown, the power, and the responsibility of kingship) and I am saying "no." Then, later: I am not here to understand; I am here to say no and die. Creon's rejoinder that sometimes saying "no" is a lot easier than saying "yes" was equally powerful. Both set me thinking.

Although the cast was fully Indian, the play was not explicitly adapted into the Indian context (it was still set in the context that Sophocles put it in). Yet, the body language, mannerisms, and accents made it, for me, an Indian play. The way the guards treated, tormented, and groped Antigone before they realized who she was really hit home. I don't know if the actors intended it that way, but the enactment definitely reminded me of Indian cops, famous for their mistreatment of women. That particular scene, if stripped from the rest of the play, could have been taken from one of countless Hindi movies where the protagonist is brave/ stupid enough to go to the police station alone.

And, of course, that brought me back to the subject of many of my recent reflections: what it means to be a young woman in India. I spent yesterday morning with a close friend from high school, arguing about the position of women in Indian society today. He maintains that men and women are equal in the "younger generation," as is represented by the Business-school gender ratio of 1:1. I maintain that business school ratios do not reflect society in general. A recent "Hindustan Times" survey revealed that only 15% of urban middle-class women in India are employed; and we haven't even begun talking about different pay packages and the like. Another statistic that should probably have prepared me for the fact that guys are largely ignorant of what goes on in women's lives: almost 80% of interviewed men claimed to have at some point been a part of a group that eve-teased or molested a woman, but only about 20% say that a woman friend, family member, or acquaintance of theirs has ever been eve-teased or molested. You have to wonder: who do they think these women are whom they molest?

I went out to lunch with a different friend, and after we had eaten, we decided to sit outside for a while so she could smoke. An old man came up to us, asking for money. We declined; he persisted, blessing us with "May you have many children." When we continued to ignore him, his blessings became more insistent: "May you have sons! Many sons!" At this point, she and I could hardly suppress our smiles; once he left, we burst out laughing and asked each other why we would give money in the wish of having sons, then have to spend so much money to bring those sons up; give us daughters any day! But jokes aside, that little incident was a hauntingly perfect response to the morning's conversations.

Antigone made me think about what it would mean to say no. To say no to a system that I think is, in her words, vile. She chose a melodramatic, tragic end, but perhaps her position was only an exaggeration to prove a point. At least she chose; how many people live and die without ever choosing? Creon made me wonder what it means to say yes to something I know is necessary even if it is difficult. To do things that are unpleasant to me, even things that I know I do not believe in, in order to accomplish what I believe to be a larger good. "Someone had to say yes," he said. True. In subtler, less dramatic ways, Antigone and Creon both live in me... in all of us, probably.

That scene between Creon and Antigone also reminded me of the adage: You can't hate someone when you know their story. Until that point, Creon is the bad guy, the villain of the play. After that conversation he becomes the guy you feel sorriest for. Amazing what a story can do.

Wow, you read this far??? Did you really have nothing better to do? ;)