Ashray and Shushrusha

Abstract

In this essay, drawing on the case study of Kolkata-based blind theatre groups Blind Opera (est. 1995) and Anyadesh (lit. ‘a different country’, est. 2006), I argue that performance can effectively provide embodied care to oppressed individuals and their communities in the Global South— united by poverty, lack of state support, infrastructural inaccessibility and other intersectional factors. Blind Opera, and Anyadesh have done pioneering work in exploring theatre as medium for care for the visually impaired. The essay looks at the work of these two groups as one instance among many in the Indian context, where in recent years, theatre or performance has emerged as a major site for dispensing care in marginal communities afflicted by systemic neglect, exploitation, oppression or conflict. Focusing particularly on the practice that has evolved at Blind Opera and Anyadesh, I try to untangle some of the core principles. I identify and explore two key vernacular conceptual categories Ashray and Shushrusha (care/willingness to listen) that have been central to embodied care-practice in the two groups. Discussing Blind Opera and Anyadesh’s work as an instance of marginal embodied care practice in the Global South, I argue, provides a critical counter weight to prevalent Eurocentric and universalist discourse around applied theatre or performative care practices. It is an equally important intervention within discourse around disability and performance which has hitherto focused mostly on examples from Anglo-American or European context.