Kavan

The final performance of this interesting collaboration between the Mumbai-based music and street theatre group Yalgaar Sanskrutik Manch and the Nalanda Arts Studio from Bangalore. Kavan is described as an ‘Ambedkarite Opera’ – Ambedkarism being the set of anti-caste ideas associated with Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar (1891-1956), an Indian economist, barrister, social reformer, and political thinker and activist.

The storyline, which is carried exclusively in poetry and song (hence the ‘opera’ tag), concerns a young man called Bejul and his journey to becoming a Shahir, a politically-aware performance poet; it’s a path from acceptance of the status quo, including compliance with the social norms like gender and caste, to a gradual realisation that many of the constraints in his life are actually man-made and not predetermined. Although the caste system provides the framework, the piece can be seen as more generally about deep-rooted inequalities in society – “and every society has such inequalities” as the director Abhishek Majumdar told us.

Read our backgrounder here.