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Sidetracked by the ‘Outsider’ Tag for Just a Moment
Some things are not worth a second glance
I was practising my lines for the college play, a Hindi adaptation of Eugène Ionesco’s French play, Amédée, which I had worked on. I had translated the entire script to suit the milieu of a typical North Indian lower-middle-class family.
Another girl in my class wanted my role in the play, that of the protagonist. This girl deceptively waited in the shadows until the translation work was concluded and then launched her campaign as to why she was more suited to the role.
Her argument was that I was an ‘outsider’ (not a Keralite, born and brought up in Kerala; it was Kerala, not Keralam back then), and just because I spoke decent Hindi, I should not get the role. According to her, there were others like her in the drama club who had been volunteering for the club and doing all the fundraising for the plays, and they deserved the spot instead.
She was also part of a prominent political student union with considerable contacts and support. In Kerala, student politics held serious influence.
