On a balmy Saturday afternoon, the discussion in the study of Shanta Gokhale's Shivaji Park residence is one about the complex relationship that a playwright and director share. What was Vijay Tendulkar's approach to the staging of the plays he wrote, and how did it differ from Girish Karnad's? Should scripts allow no room for interpretation? How far should a director go with editing the text? After all, it comes down to trusting one's writing with a collaborator, who ought to bring his own perspective to it when he visualises it for the stage.

But this sense of trust is what got Gokhale, eminent playwright, cultural critic and theatre historian, and award-winning theatre director Mahesh Dattani together for Menghaobi: The Fair One. The play depicts the story of Irom Sharmila, the political and human rights activist from Manipur who fasted for 16 years as part of her struggle to get the Armed Forces Special Powers Act repealed in the state. The protagonist, however, is a homemaker in Delhi, who through her narrow understanding of life and nationhood, questions Sharmila's struggle. Towards the end, she finds herself in complete sympathy with Sharmila.