Manjula Padmanabhan (b.1953) was born in a diplomat’s family. She is a prolific playwright, fiction writer, cartoonist, journalist, and artist. Her writing deals with various issues such as: women, gender discrimination and concerns relating to downtrodden people. She tried her hand at almost every genre with equal competence. She is believed to be the first woman cartoonist of eighties and nineties. Her famous comic strip is Suki which appeared in the Sunday Observer in Bombay. In 1997 her famous play Harvest won the Onassis International Cultural Competition Prize for theatrical plays in Greece. She has penned down numerous works such as: Lights Out (1984), An Artist’s Model (1995), The Sextet (1996), Harvest (1998), Hidden Fires (2003). She has written an interesting memoir Getting There (2000), two novels: Escape (2008) and The Island of Lost Girls (2015). Her story collection includes: Hot Death, Cold Soup: twelve short stories (1996), Kleptomania: Ten Stories (2004), Three Virgins and Other Stores (2013). 

The Interview, July 5^th, 2019

Monika Rao (MR): I begin with a commonplace question. How did you gravitate to writing plays in English? You have excelled writing in many genres like novels, short stories, graphics and many more. And ‘Theatre’ as a genre is not something that women settle (in) to so easily. So, what fascinated you about this dramatic genre?

Manjula Padmanabhan (MP): English is my mother-tongue. I don’t speak any other languages. As for writing theatre: Lights Out was my first play. However, I had been drawing a comic strip for two years by then – which included a lot of dialogue between the characters. So in a sense, writing the comic strip was a type of training for writing play scripts.

MR: A lot of women are uncomfortable with defining themselves as being feminist. Women in your plays like Leela, Naina, Frieda (Lights Out) and Jaya in Harvest are victims of patriarchal society. So, do you like to call yourself and your play as feminist?

MP: No. I do not think about feminism very much anymore. Feminists can be extremely vicious towards other women. We should look beyond gender.

MR: For the centuries, we have been seeing that women’s condition is not good, they have been tortured every now and then be it physically, mentally and verbally even in this play also a woman has been gang raped brutally. If we talk about twenty first century i.e present time. Do you see any improvement in the condition of women?

MP: I would prefer to ask this question differently: humans have been brutalized by other humans since the beginning of time. Have conditions improved for some of us? I would say, “Yes”.

MR: Your play Lights Out showcases violence against women across all strata of society. It’s all about apathetic attitude of people towards a crime or violence. It’s about sexual assault, violence and suffering of a woman. Was this bleak setup deliberately done? Or do you see it as asymptomatic of women’s predicament?

MP: The statement at the end of the play is true – the play is based on an eye-witness account given to me by a friend. The play reflects the story that was told to me.

MR: How do you see yourself different as a playwright despite being a novelist, short stories and cartoon artist?

MP: It’s a bit like using different devices – a Smartphone, a tablet, a computer – to read e-mail or text messages or news articles or tweets: they are all variations of input. For me, the different media I use are variations of output.

MR: Who has been the greatest influence on you in the field of theatre?

MP: No one, really. I did a BA in Economics, MA in History. I didn’t study literature except in the sense that we all get some literature as part of school and college.

MR: How far do you think your plays invite the audience to view the underside of patriarchal culture through women’s eyes?

MP: (*smiling*): I honestly don’t know! Labels such as “patriarchy” and “through women’s eyes” are external assessments. They are not terms that I use while writing.

MR: The 1970s saw a spate of prominent dramatists like Habib Tanvir, Badal Sircar, Vijay Tendulkar, Mohan Rakesh, Mahesh Elkunchwar,and Satish Alekar, among others. Women in their plays were found to be in a “no exit from the trap” situation. They stopped short at romanticizing pain. In your work people are trying to find a way out. How do you react to this?

MP: I think that’s an interesting way of looking at my body of work. However, I don’t start out with an ideological plan. I avoid molding a narrative to fit within a particular ideology or pre-determined conclusion.

MR: As an Indian playwright what is your viewpoint about the contribution of women    to writing plays in English?

MP: I don’t know enough about theatre in India to answer this question.

MR: Do you agree with the fact that theatre is a best prop to condemn such issues in the society?

MP: I think, by now, you will know from my previous responses that I don’t approach my work with the idea of condemning this or that.

MR:  In your play Lights Out, why is Frieda silent throughout the play whereas other two female characters are disturbed with pain and screams of the victim. Has she not been affected with that incident of gang rape?

MP: My preference is for you – meaning the audience – to work out the answer for yourself. During staged performances, the role of Frieda is taken very seriously, because of the way she uses her expressions and her silence to make comments. Her silence is a kind of statement.

MR: How do you transpire your play Lights Out which is based on a real incident? What is your take on male insensitivity in the play?

MP: Once again, I must point out that I can’t have a “take” – meaning, an opinion, or a response to – on the way my characters behave! I have created them that way, on purpose. If you have noticed their insensitivity then you have correctly interpreted my intention. I need them to behave that way in order to inspire the audience to ask themselves the questions that the men are asking.

MR: In this play Leela and Naina they both keep trying to convince their husbands to call the police but their plea have been neglected. Do not you think that masculine power is controlling the weaker one? Have women not been able to take their own decision and call the police for the aid of the victim?

MP: Once again … please recognize that events within the script occur by intention – i.e., my intention – not by chance. It’s also because; in the description narrated to me by my friend of the events that took place in the apartment from which she and a number of other witnesses watched a gang rape … no one called the police. A few of the statements made within the play are based on statements told to me. If you, as an audience member, feel frustrated by the inaction of Leela/Naina, it’s because that’s the direction in which I pushed the script.

MR: How will you see the apathetic behavior of people towards any kind of violence which are happening in their surroundings and they just neglect it and not bother to lend their hand to help it as it is shown  in this play also Bhaskar and Mohan instead of helping her they are engaged in discussing the incident.?

MP: Sometimes people DO come to the aid of others. But in this play, they do not. After all, if they did, it would be a very different kind of play.

MR: Finally, can you enlighten us about the changes happening all across the country in the field of theatre especially women involve in It.?

MP: I have very little contact with other playwrights.

MR:  Thank you very much for your valuable time!