'Rising From The Embers' honours women who survived India’s darkest chapters

What does it mean for a nation to remember, like truly remember?

Not in parades. Not in patriotic anthems. Not in hashtags that trend for a day and disappear. But in the trembling voice of a woman who once crossed a border with nothing but her child in her arms. In the silence of a burnt home. In the decision, again and again, to live.

From Partition to Godhra: Rising From The Embers remembers the forgotten

This weekend, The Theatrewalas present Rising From The Embers, written and directed by Sushmaa Roshan Ahuja. The play revisits three ruptures in India’s modern history, Partition (1947), the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, and the Godhra violence of 2002.

“I felt these stories have to be told,” Sushmaa says. “Our young generation doesn’t know much about what exactly happened then. It’s part of our history and they have a right to know where they are coming from. And theatre is one of the best mediums to portray that.”

Sushmaa’s connection to the material is not academic. “My parents and my in-laws came from Lahore and Rawalpindi during the Partition… and also many relatives,” she shares. Over the years, she collected their stories, layering them with archival accounts. The result is a script that moves between oral testimony and documented fact, personal memory and collective trauma.

The play centres women, not as footnotes to history, but as its bearers.

When asked what patterns she noticed about how women experience conflict differently, Sushmaa’s response is piercingly direct: “Why do women and their children have to suffer for the actions of men? Why, to take revenge, do men feel the need to humiliate their enemy’s women? Men want their revenge and die killing each other, but who suffers? Their women, their children.” It is a question that history answers maybe too often.

The production adopts a reading theatre format partially, a conscious aesthetic choice. “I opted for Reading Theatre format to undertone the violence which can be very disturbing to watch. Some key scenes are enacted though,” she explains.

For the actors, stepping into these roles has not been easy.

“To start off, the preparation for this role did take a toll on me mentally,” says Sadaf Afreen Mondal. “Emotionally I had to approach the character with a responsibility, reminding myself that these are the voices of people, specially women, who were silenced.” She describes rehearsals as a shared emotional space: “All the actors performing simultaneously had a deep impact on me, creating a space which was not just about talking about the trauma but holding space for memory and the truth.”

As rehearsals unfolded, what struck her most was the continuity of strength across generations.

“For me the most important thing that I discovered was that across all the periods, despite being decades apart, women’s resilience was unwavering and strong. They all had to face assault and violence in the most unexpected and brutal way, in which some succumbed, but the ones who lived went on to carry the scars and resilience meant continuing to live in societies that often denied or silenced their trauma. Survival in itself was a resilience.”

Sushmaa believes theatre carries responsibility. “Theatre may not be able to solve a problem, but it must take the responsibility to make people aware of it, represent their anguish, confusion or helplessness. Theatre must awaken people from its slumber.”

That awakening is what the cast hopes audiences will carry home.

“Rather than just shock or sadness,” says Sadaf, “I hope the audience leaves with a socio-political awareness of what happened in our history and a deeper understanding and compassion towards the cost of reactionary communal violence. Re-introspecting the story of the survivors with more dignity and compassion.”

Rising From The Embers promises to sit with you long after the lights come up. In a time when forgetting is easier, perhaps even convenient, this production chooses to remember, and in remembering, honours the women who refused to be reduced to ash.

Rs 300 onwards. On February 28 at 4 and 7 pm. At Medai-The Stage, Alwarpet.

Email: shivani@newindianexpress.com
X: @ShivaniIllakiya

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