“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 this hypothesis has been proven wrong time and again. 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?
“Satyameva”, a play written by Sudipta Bhawmik, 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. 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.
Cast:
Bill : Sankar Ghoshal
Sanjoy : Indranil Mukherjee
Written and Directed by Sudipta Bhawmik
Produced by Ethnomedia Center for Theater Arts (ECTA)
Presented by Ganakrishti, Kolkata
6.00pm August 20, 21, 22, 23 2007
Sujata Sadan, 7, Hazra Road, Kolkata – 700 026.
Phone- 2476-6131
Please inform your friends and family in India to come and watch this play that tells our story.
“Desh is doing wonderful and so much for the better”, declares my friend after his recent trip to Calcutta. I suppose Desh means Calcutta. “People are so prosperous, everything is available at the wonderful shopping complexes; diaper, canned ham” he continues “you name it, they have it”. My friend is all dazed up by the malls and the wonderful shops there. Like Sukumar Roy wrote in his celebrated poem that Borobabu’s moustache made him what really Borobabu was; to my friend the city belonged to its shopping malls and that’s what the Desh was all about.. What else he needs to be impressed about the tremendous leap Calcutta is taking towards progress? He has no doubt in his mind that the country we have left behind is doing wonderfully well. Truthfully I was not that persuaded by his argument, it was only the shopping malls, I thought. What’s the big deal? Continue reading 
