Those left behind things play tells the tales of immigrants

Rushabh Kamdar and Gandharv Dewan in Those Left Behind Things

Playwright Vikram Phukan knows the travails of negotiating life as an immigrant. Having lived in England's Nottingham city in mid-2000, he's been there, done that. Except, he had it easier than most.

In his latest play, Those Left Behind Things, he touches upon the vulnerability and resilience of immigrants through the eyes of an Iranian asylum-seeker. The play examines displacement, and the inextinguishable human spirit. Performed by actors Gandharv Dewan and Rushabh Kamdar, the two-hour-long play has also been directed by Phukan.

The inspiration, he tells us, came from an incident he witnessed while living in the UK. An Iranian-Kurdish refugee, whose application for asylum was in danger of being rejected, had painstakingly stitched his eyes, ears and mouth shut, threatening to set himself on fire if he were to be deported.

"The drama played out just a few houses away. And, I watched it unfold both in the flesh and on television." For Phukan, the act spoke volumes of the man's gumption to survive. "I was an immigrant myself, albeit on a work visa, whose position in the country was secured by sheaves of paperwork. So, it was a stretch to fathom the persuasions of those who could simply tear up their passports at will."

The play flits across time zones: from the dark alleys of Tehran to the neon-lit pier at Brighton, aiming to give viewers a sense of individual lives and the different milieus they inhabit. "I initially wrote it as the 'stream of consciousness' monologue of a fictional asylum-seeker, but I tweaked it into a two-hander, bringing to fore the exigencies of real-life refugee existence."

Where: Cuckoo Club, 5AA Pali Hill, Bandra West WHEN: January 31, 7.30 PM
Entry: Rs 350
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