Woman: Is she a muse or an object?

Watch a satire, replete with monologues and Folk music, to learn how women have always been an endangered species

Kiran Khoje plays an acid attack survivor

Six artistes, draped in sarees over black tights and tank tops, sing Munni Badnaam Hui and Halkat Jawaani as tabla and harmonium players add Folk beats to the renditions. A screen behind them projects frames from TV commercials that objectify women, including Katrina Kaif’s mango juice advert. This is how the play, Museum Of Species In Danger, will commence this evening.

Written and directed by Rasika Agashe, a National School of Drama (NSD) graduate, the satire compiles 12 monologues of mythological characters and contemporary women to question the apathy towards women, which exists even today.

Rasika Agashe

"The idea for the play came about after the Delhi rape. I wanted to protest using a medium I was familiar with," shares Agashe, who has travelled with the play across the country since 2014, and is returning to Mumbai after a year-long hiatus.

She has roped in her juniors from NSD - Anamika Tiwari, Sahiba Vij, Sonali Bharadwaj, Jyoti Hooda, Kiran Khoje and Sneha Kumar - to perform the play featuring Sita, Draupadi and Shurpanakha along with Bilkis Bano and Bhanwari Devi. "The monologues present a character sketch. The aim is to question the ideas of equality, marital rape and objectification of women," adds Agashe. Case in point: Vij, who plays Shurpanakha - who is portrayed as ugly in the Ramayana - laments that it’s only her physical appearance that people know about, not her talent in horse racing or skills in Mathematics.

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