|
Download Varanasi from Screen Test Audio Productions
Screen Test Productions, 2013 This disturbing little three-hander
saw Dominic (Graham Pountney) and Mandy (Kate Harper) on a rowing-boat in the middle of the River Ganges. The person
in charge, Kali (Saurabh Jadhav) accidentally loses the oars overboard, dives in and swims away, promising to come back and
rescue them. Dominic and Mandy are left alone to ponder the wisdom of coming to India in the first place; they had come
to fulfil the last wishes of their son Liam, who wanted them to visit the holy city of Varanasi. Varanasi has strong echoes of E.
M. Forster's A Passage to India, as it dramatizes the inbuilt racism shown by many westerners while experiencing
cultures very different from their own. The people are "dirty," the streets full of shit, the River itself is too polluted
to swim in, even though many locals believe in its healing powers. Dominic and Mandy are too much imprisoned by their
own 'civilized' expectations, and hence cannot open themselves to new experiences and alternative cultural values. Being
abandoned on a rowing-boat in full view of the people living the river-banks offers them a salutary experience; just because
they are westerners, they cannot assume that they will automatically be "rescued." Perhaps there's no need to be "rescued"
anyway; to be left in the middle of the river offers a chance to set aside one's expectations and try something new.
Whether Dominic and Mandy will understand this opportunity is anyone's guess.
|
