“Satyameva Jayate” – a phrase from the Mundaka Upanishad is the national motto of India and all Indians. Literally it means, “truth alone prevails” – implying that truth is all that we should strive for, since truth only can lead us to success and happiness. But often this hypothesis has been proven wrong. Through bitter life experiences we all discover that “truth” hardly leads us anywhere – it is the “untruth”, the “false” and “deceit” that we need to master in order to attain our goals and objectives. Or is it that our goals and objectives need to be re-examined? Are we chasing the right goals? Goals for which we do not have to rely on the “false” – goals that can truly be achieved by truth alone? Or is it that “truth” is nothing but an illusion, a “fake” notion that we like to believe to be “true”?
“Satyameva”, tries to explore this age old question in a setting in North America where the immigrant Indian population tries to deal with this issue in their everyday lives.

Sanjoy, a young software professional, has arrived in the “land of opportunity” for just over six months and works for a software body shopping company “InterSoft” owned and operated by Bill (a Bengali American living in the States for over thirty years.) On the day of the play Bill fires Sanjoy and asks him to go back to India. Sanjoy, however, is not happy with this decision and refuses to oblige. He informs Bill that he is not going to return to India under any circumstances. He states that returning to India is synonymous to signing a death warrant for himself. He cannot subject himself to such a grave risk. And to justify himself, and to win his ultimate motive, he has to make a choice between truth or deceit.

ECTA (Ethnomedia Center for Theater Arts) presents this new play at the Edison Valley Playhouse, in Edison NJ on January 26 and 27, 2008.