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In the new Hindi play Khachar Pakhi, to be staged in Hyderabad on November 8, the audience meets an anonymous woman — the central figure on stage — yet the story isn’t about one woman alone. “It is a story that resonates with many women in India who have experienced sexual harassment or abuse and the trauma that follows,” says writer and director Surendra Singh Negi. The 90-minute play, performed by three actors, Adithya R, Seema Rajpal, and Shafaque Javed, marks the fourth original production by Negi’s theatre group. It spotlights the lingering effects of post-traumatic stress disorder to the forefront. It opens with a woman meeting someone in a café, though it is never revealed whether that “someone” is a woman, or even alive or dead. Through their conversation, the audience learns she once slapped a person during a job interview — the play unravels what triggered that act and, eventually, the reason behind it. “Through fragmented recollections and blurred boundaries between truth and illusion, the narrative underscores how trauma disrupts perception and resists coherent representation,” says Negi. The story unfolds through the dialogue between the two main characters and a waitress in the café. Despite the limited setting, the play remains gripping. Drawing from post-dramatic theatre, Negi employs dialogue with deliberate gaps, psychological shifts and layered imagery to construct a complex, non-linear narrative. “Traumatic stories aren’t always told directly or realistically. People respond to trauma in different ways — hence the complexity,” he explains. Negi’s two decades of observation and research on cases of sexual harassment and abuse form the foundation of this play. “It has not been easy — neither for me nor for the actors,” he says. Written in Hindi, the play’s title, Khachar Pakhi — meaning “caged bird” — draws inspiration from a Rabindranath Tagore poem written over 130 years ago. The poem features a dialogue between two birds: one caged, the other free. “They discuss freedom, confinement, and the meaning of life,” explains Negi, who is also a musician. “In this play, you see a similar kind of exchange between two women.” Following its Hyderabad premiere, the play will travel to Chennai, Delhi, Bengaluru, and Bhubaneswar. Khachar Pakhi, a play in Hindi to be staged on November 8 at 8 pm at Lamakaan; Entry free
