"પીળું ગુલાબ અને હું" - લાભશંકર ઠાકર

        Recently I have attended a Gadhyasabha organized by Gujarati Department MKBU, which was based on the life of Labhshankar Thakar. The name of the event was “La. Tha. Sarkhi Vat”. In this event I have seen a documentary on the life of Labhshankar Thakar and well known writers like Suman Shah, My Dear Jayu, Minal Dave and Rajesh Pandya has talked about writing of Labhshankar Thakar. For more information click here

      After knowing so many interesting things about the prominent Gujarati writer Labhshankar Thakar, I have decided to read his plays and novels. Recently when I have visited central library of MK Bhavnagar University, I have searched for his books and found one play “પીળું ગુલાબ અને હું” (Yellow rose and I) written by him.

Here I am sharing my views regarding it.

        The story is about an artist, a female stage actress. There are two techniques which writer has used, play within play and flashback technique. While reading we could observe that there are two protagonists, first is Sandhya and second is the character of narrator – a Female-director, who drives the whole drama like all this is happening in her mind and she is at the controlling position.

           The very first scene of the drama is Sandhya is performing a last scene of the play “Veshya”, the role of Rosy, a prostitute, and she is delivering dialogues and at the end Rosy commits suicide. Sandhya is a stage actress from the age of thirteen. When we read the play we can feel the psychological condition of Sandhya that how she is frustrated by playing different roles and drama, she wanted to get her real identity as Sandhya but she was not able to come out from her mental trauma and at last she was not able to speak and react.

           The title is “Pilu Gulab ane hu” (Yellow rose and I) this yellow rose is Sandhya, we can read that Ketan (Sandhya’s husband) calls her ‘yellow rose’ and this “Hu” (‘I’) is a Female-director. The story of Female director is connected with Sandhya because She is an imaginative character of Female-director like her other characters Veshya (a prostitute) and Bhairavi (a murderer). The symptoms of split personality in Sandhya can be clearly noticed, at one time she is normal but when she hears the instructions and taunts of Female-director she behaves like a different woman or one can say like a Female-director.

         The most interesting character of the play is Female-director; she is present all the time on stage and talks with characters and audiences. We can feel her mood swings while reading. Her past incidents and questions are the reason of her behaviour and frustration but by this frustration time and again she satirises the society. She wants to die, she takes a stool and rope for hanging herself but she tells the audience that I can die but the most important thing for dying is ‘the desire of dying’ and that she does not have. She has many reasons to die but not any desire to die.

 At the end of the play she says that,

“Yes, I am still here, nothing is going to start, nothing will end”

And she continues the dialogue by saying that you all are thinking that the drama has ended but actually it has not begun yet.

          This is modernist way of telling reality of existence to the world, a slang language has been used by Rosy (Sandhya) (Pg. 1 – 8) and Female-Director to address the male identity. There is a feeling of absurdity in Sandhya’s character, while the identity crises and suffering of being have started in her life. The Female-director time and again points out the existence of society, what you all are doing? And what is your purpose of doing that? Especially when she asks a couple that how much you love each other, this reminds me “The Waste Land” by T. S. Eliot where he asks the same question. These questions are towards our identity and existence. The psychological disorder of Female director because she never got enough love in her life and when she told the story of Bhairavi and how she murdered her husband; it reminds me the characters of Edgar Allan Poe who murders cold bloodedly and also accepts the crime as the character of Bhairavi has accepted with enough reasons of murder.

       

         This play can offend us badly and variously because when we observe the life Of Sandhya and compare our life by asking our self that what we are doing and for how many days we will continue doing this? It will make us think deeply. Every reading gives us new thinking and deconstructs our own thoughts.