I'm sitting
down to write this and the Bollywood song “Om Shanti Om” has just
floated unbidden, into my head. I've only ever heard it at a couple
of Indian weddings and in the play I'm about to write about. Amazing,
the power of music and the way it worms its way into the brain and
links itself with emotions, places, experiences (eeugh, I'm
shuddering- that expression will never be the same since the story
of the tapeworm in the brain came out last week).
So subject
of the day. Slums. And the new play at the National Theatre, Behind
the Beautiful Forevers on till April 12th
starring some familiar TV faces (including Meera Syal
and the guy that plays Sanjeev Bhaskar's dad in The Kumars). Which is
about slums.
Mini-Me has
always wanted to watch Slumdog Millionaire and I haven't let her,
yet. As I remember, it depicts a dark and violent world that I felt I
wanted to shelter her from in her childhood. Now she has grown up into Midi-Me
however, I think it might be time.
A few years
ago we watched a documentary series on TV on the slums of Mumbai. One
of the episodes was about recycling and how they find a use for
absolutely EVERYTHING. Indelibly etched in my memory are images of men, women and children, walking
through streets, slum alleys, train stations and over vast mountains of
noxious rubbish, salvaging any trace of material that could be
collected and sold. Nothing goes to waste. From the tiniest bit of
plastic on a piece of wire to the littlest sliver of foil from a
chocolate wrapper. Everything is meticulously collected, separated,
amassed into piles and broken down, melted or re-formed into usable
elements. Even things which over here, in the UK are un-recyclable,
they find a use for, over there. I think witnessing this, albeit on
TV and not in real life, did something to my mind because I still think
about it a lot and it made me more conscious of what I use, re-use
and recycle.
One day, I
had this brain wave and wondered why they don't mine old land-fill
sites here for materials which have been thrown away for decades and
which we now need – like copper. (Did you know there is a shortage
of copper?) I Asked The Google and found out that, of course, they
are already doing it. I also think they should bring some of
those street experts over here to advise on what can be done with the
vast amounts of “rubbish” we currently send to landfill every
year. I'm not sure those are the highly-skilled migrants the
government wants to encourage but they should be... Anyway, as usual
I digress
Behind
the Beautiful Forevers is set in the Annawadi slum of
Mumbai. It's near the airport (depicted very well- I won't spoil it by saying how,) and populated by people from all over
India; Hindu, Muslim and Christian living side by side. The play opens with the arresting
scene of a trash-filled wasteland, quickly cleared, followed by one
of these “sorters”, separating and weighing the day's
collections. It is a respectable, lucrative job within the slum, one
carried out with purpose and which supports an entire family, almost
allowing them to advance one step closer to a “beautiful forever”.
As the story unfolds, we meet people with other jobs and roles
within the slum society and start to understand the hierarchy that
exists, in terms of affluence and influence; both are inextricably
linked. We come face to face with the outcomes, often shockingly
tragic, that befall some of those who aspire to greater things. And
we discover an achingly unfair, kafkaesque system – if you can call
it a system – within-which justice is sought (often futilely) and
thwarted (often successfully) by parties equally desperate.
And the
above paragraph cannot do the play justice. I don't want to say too
much because I don't want to spoil it for you if you are going to see
it. I really found it was worth watching and there were so many more
issues and intricacies that you are made to confront in doing so.
What's more, it is based on real interviews with slum-dwellers.
Everything that happens is something recounted to Katherine Boo,
writer of the original book, Behind
the Beautiful Forevers. Watch an interview with her here:
I think it
is a great play to take your kids to (some disturbing and violent
scenes notwithstanding,) if they are 11 years or over. Midi-me was
moved by it and I think, for all the documentaries I make her sit and watch
with me, it is another thing entirely for her - as a young person
with so much to learn about the inequalities and painful need on the
planet that we inhabit - to be entangled with the characters in this
web-like world for three hours. I left the theatre paradoxically
both depressed and uplifted with a renewed sense of gratefulness at
my place in the world and a desire to use my relatively privileged
life for something more meaningful than watching Real Housewives. And
also with the Bollywood song “Om Shanti Om” wriggling through in
my head.
On till 12th April at The Olivier Theatre at the National Theatre, Southbank.
