Apne Desh Ke Log: Jashn-E-Qalam's KC Shankar on how he dramatised Kamleshwar's timeless story

Sahitya Akademi Award-winning writer Kamleshwar had many achievements to his credit — of being one of the pioneers of the Nayi Kahani literary movement, of having a long career at Doordarshan, of writing a vast number of Bollywood films, and having several short stories to his credit. One such short story is titled ‘Apne Desh Ke Log’, which was jointly presented by Jashn-E-Qalam, a Mumbai-based collective of professional stage and screen actors, and Firstpost on the occasion of India’s Independence Day. It is a powerful story about a State which wants to create “model” citizens by changing that which it thinks is wrong with them. People are cured of their ‘illnesses" and “faults” through corrective surgery, thereby quashing dissent. “Not only is it a burning socio-political text — it’s very visual and gripping — but it is also alarmingly succinct, at a mere three-and-a-half pages. It is within two descriptions, one of the half office-half hospital populated by officers who resemble doctors and doctors who resemble bureaucrats, and the other, which is of the actual ‘surgery’, that the reader is drawn into this world,” says KC Shankar, who presented the story. There is also a political urgency to the story, which was was written in 1963. “The world was waking up to mass propaganda. It was also the age of psychology and understanding how the mind can be controlled, how clinically that control can be achieved. Writers like Kamleshwar could perceive how the Nehruvian dream was falling apart. In the original story, the attack is on bureaucracy and red-tapism that gives birth to efficient-but-inhumane personnel. My adaptation looks at how the system looks to create an ideal citizen, because everyone needs to be put in line,” the actor explains. This is why it comes as a surprise that within Kamleshwar’s body of work, this story is a hidden gem. “This isn’t one of his popular stories, you won’t find in collections that he himself put together or which are supposed to be representative of his writing,” KC Shankar says. Apne Desh Ke Log lends itself to an effective dramatic reading because it is written in first-person. “Moreover, the narrator has no personal reaction to anything that takes place. He coldly reports the details and facts. It is as though he is a corpse from whom blood has been drawn out. As an actor, however, I am flesh and blood, and can present my interpretation of the events,” he says. In this particular performance staged on Independence Day, the story ended with a focus on newspapers and headlines, especially articles and reports which focused on dissent and how it is being muzzled. This was a metaphor for the truth and how it can be bent, KC Shankar explains.