THE BODY HOUSE OF AN ACTOR

A Disposable Theatre text: Samudra Kajal Saikia
Photo Courtesy: Anuradha Upadhyaya

1

surveillance

The roof of Kankhowa’s house leaks

Thousands of eyes from the evening sky

Keep staring at me

I cannot go out

I cannot stay in

2

I am an actor

image from "Ghar Katha", The Body House of an actor part

I am an actor. Very limited my abilities are.

Long ago I left my home in the name of further studies.

I know, most of you have the same story.

But as an actor I dwell in this particular body.

This body of mine is my house.

Wherever I go, I carry this house with me.

Or, say, this mobile house brings me within it.

I cannot go out of this house.

If I do, I’m no more an actor.

Sometimes I feel neither can I enter in this house of mine.

It seems to be ridiculous, but, such thoughts come to my mind most often.

If acting is an art, I transform this very body to an art object,

and present it in front of you.

Dear audience, see, look at me, I am doing the same at this particular moment.

This time I cannot go out of this space

and take a nap.

I cannot have a cup of coffee.

3

Buy me. Purchase me.

Sometimes I wish if I could cut your hair and make money.

I am an actor with limited abilities.

I know very little things, very little things I can do

I can’t fly a kite properly; I don’t know how to drive a car

Neither do I know how to play the dotara

I love you so much without even knowing you

how much would I love, after seeing you, I rarely can assume

I can't write a poem.

It was better if I were a farmer. A cloth marchant.

To sale my goods and make money.

Buy me. Purchase me. I am for sale.

It was better if I were a painter.

I would have made a painting and sale it and make money.

But I’m a performer.

I turn my body to an art work. I don't make art. I am the art.

Buy me.

I want to make money.

Purchase me.

I don’t have a house to sale out and to make money.

I cannot rent a house to dwell in.

I carry on a house, my body, all the times

4

I am an actor.

Before and after being an actor, I am a spectator.

I see things. I can see things.

I have to see things. I have to see other people seeing me.

So, if I am an actor,

there are many spectators inside me, dwelling inside my house.

As a result I get confused, how many people reside inside my house.

I lose myself, inside my house.

As my house is overcrowded I cannot enter in the house.

I remember Lalon Fakir. I remember Kabir.

5

I enter out I exit in…

There is somebody else dwelling inside my house.

Neither I can see nor can I touch, beyond of my knowledge.

Though I hardly know his name, I can feel his grief.

We’re in the same house, yet an impassable chasm between us.

No postman ever came, in search of him.

The telephone never rang for him.

I mostly buy vegetables for him as well

When I do it for me, I care for him.

He never comes out of the house, and for that

I cannot put a lock at my door when I go to the office.

(As if suffering from asthma trouble) he does not sleep at night.

Mostly I also spend a sleepless night, listening to the mice.

I play the ektaara, and you pick up the percussion

But who spoils the rhythm, I can’t guess.

You prepare the color and I paint the canvas with passion

But who is there to make it a mess? 

In search of him again and again I enter in and I come out

I enter in the house and come out of the house and in and out…

And thus at a time I get confused, I’m in or actually I’m out.

I enter out me exit in, I exit in I enter out…

6

HOUSE INSIDE THE HOUSE

 

Dear,

Amongst the crowd I do search for you.

There is a house inside the house

And inside the house inside the house there is another house

And inside the house inside the house inside the house there is another one

And inside the house inside the house inside the house there is another one

Which is inside the house, and…

and

then another house inside the…

I don’t know inside which one you inhabit.

I enter here in search of you, and you go to the other.

If I go there, you simply move to another one.

My days are passing just like that only.

For long days

I’m neither inside the house, nor outside actually

I don’t know how many houses are there

Inside my house

Neither I know who the rascal built it

One thing I know only is, you are there somewhere

You are there.

With a constant stare.

 

Photo Courtesy: Anuradha Upadhyay





Notes:


THE BODY HOUSE OF AN ACTOR
was partially performed in Ghar Katha, a disposable theatre experience
as a part of the 75th anniversary of Baroda Ameteur Dramatic Club
Manjalpur, baroda, 28th Aug. 2010

As an artefact the body constructs its viewers (and their expectations), while viewers' expectations construct a body's contours.

Anuradha Kapur, "Actors Prepare",

Theatre India, National School of Drama's Theatre Journal,

May 2004, Number Nine, ed. by, K S Rajendran, pp. 8

Actors are probably the only art makers who can be told (in response to gestures they make with their vocal and physical apparatus, their own attributes and their responses) by an observer that what they have palpably executed is not real or truthful.

Anuradha Kapur, "Actors Prepare",

Theatre India, National School of Drama's Theatre Journal,

May 2004, Number Nine, ed. by, K S Rajendran, pp. 9