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Santi (rear) played by Aiyana Bartlett and Naz played by Farah Ashraf. Pictures: Paul Blakemore Santi & Naz Patrick Centre Birmingham Hippodrome **** Santi and Naz are young teenage friends in an Indian village sometime in the late 1940s. They are an inseparable pair, spending all their waking hours together full of youthful life. Santi is Sikh and Naz Muslim, not that that matters, religion is just about belief after all, while friendship is much more, it’s about caring for someone else, enjoying their company, laughing, dreaming, playing, even crying together, the belief is yours in them. As for religion? They both attend and celebrate each other's family religious holidays and festivals, so where is the problem? Santi, played impressively by Aiyana Bartlett, is the more serious and studious one. She is an avid reader and is learning English. Naz, meanwhile, played with a lovely skittish air by Farah Ashraf, is, should be say, more into life than reading or study and can see no point in learning English, not because of any nationalist philosophy mind you, more the fact it is too much effort and interferes with fun. It is a view tempered by Santi’s explanation that English is the language of offices in big cities where the good jobs are, which provides not so much an enthusiasm for mastering English as a boring reason, but does give us an amusing moment as Naz attempts to learn English proverbs and sayings, such as Absence makes the heart grow fondure . . . What’s fondure Santi? They delight in the first rains of the monsoon, in paddling their feet in the lake by their special tree, and experience the first stirrings of passion, the awakening of a confusing array of emotions. There are signs that the friendship could be becoming something more, feelings which grow after Naz gives her friend a controversial book, banned, so, obviously being read by everyone, which it appears is dipping into the realms of sapphism. Conflicting with that emotional pull Santi also becomes obsessed with a local boy Rahul, but only from afar, he is a teen fantasy and fantasies survive best living in imagination.
Santi loves reading while Naz is happy just listening to her best friend. The year is 1947 and nationalism and partition are in the air and a regular game of the two girls is to do comic impressions of the main figures in what to them is a bit of a laugh, a game even, but in reality will change their, and many millions of other lives, for ever. Naz’s father could see the writing on the wall though and arranged a marriage with a wealthy, older man for his daughter. Perhaps he thought it was insurance, would give her safety, but it threatened the friendship with Santi, and, more important, Naz’s free spirit and independence. Love was not even a consideration and thoughts of a wedding night were filled with a dread Naz shared with her friend. Somehow, we knew it was not going to end well, but that moment of drama is yet to come. First there is the micky taking of leading figures, starting with Rahul, of course, hardly a national figurehead, but we discover he is a local, vocal advocate for Hindu nationalism, but more telling they make fun of Mahatma Gandhi, the Hindu pacifist who wanted an independent India based on religious pluralism, and then the stern, fanatical Muhammad Ali Jinnah of the All-India Muslim League, who wanted a separate Muslim state of Pakistan, and even Lord Louis Mountbatten, the last Viceroy, tasked with overseeing Indian independence . . . without partition. That went well. The mimicry was all good humoured, apolitical, and perhaps indicated an innocence and political naivety amid the tumultuous events that were occurring and the indescribable horrors to come. Robert Burns’ line of Man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn was soon to be written in blood and tears all over the continent. There is an argument that the play is too light hearted, too shallow and trivial for the world changing events that are unfolding, but that perhaps misses the point. To teenage girls growing up with teenage dreams and hopes, national politics and arguments about partition would have had the same interest as the shipping forecast for the Bay of Bengal. Ask yourself how many teenagers here were in school playgrounds discussing the merits of Starmer against Sunak, or the rise of neo-fascism in Europe as break time came this past summer? This is about teens on the cusp between childhood and adulthood, about coming of age, an age of innocence and for Santi and Naz all that was lost, snatched away in a period of history that passed almost unnoticed in most of Britain.
A last dance for a beautiful friendship about to be doomed by partition As a nation back in 1947 Britain was broke, recovering from a devastating war, large parts of many cities reduced to rubble, coping with rationing and unemployment. We were the architects of the European Convention of Human Rights created in the hope of protecting the people of Europe from the horrors of war ever again. Never again was our real concern especially as the cold war and threat of nuclear annihilation was emerging. We also had emotional overload from the horrors of Auschwitz, Belsen and the like and the partition of India, and indeed the same in Palestine in the same year, was something happening in foreign lands somewhere on the other side of the world, it was all something that didn’t concern us, so it hardly registered. It was a time when social media was postcards and letters or meeting mates at the pub, no emails or internet, no satellites, no 24 hour news, live pictures or live reporting, it was a time when news from our foreign correspondents could take days to arrive. Yet partition creating India and a divided Pakistan was to see around 18 million people moved and displaced, with around 12 million left living in refugee camps. More than three million were killed according to a Harvard University study with 100,000 women kidnapped and raped with public humiliation, mutilation and raping almost the norm. Systematic slaughter and sexual violence against women, the killing of children and babies marked a brutal, bloodthirsty religious mob rule, all in the name of . . . any God out there want to volunteer? It was a descent into barbarism whose legacy still lingers today in clashes driven more by religion than anything passing as reason. Santi and Naz do not take us down that route, as plays such as the recent Silence at Birmingham Rep did, indeed the ending is abrupt. The problem of Naz’s arranged marriage is, let's say, given a permanent solution, and with political turmoil growing and their village on the front line, Naz’s Muslim family move away, fast, unannounced, before the real violence unfolds, with Santi and Naz left with nothing but memories and wonder about each other and how they are getting on. But perhaps that is what happened to so many friendships in those dangerous days, up sticks and disappear into the night unannounced, secretly, the preservation of life more important than any sad goodbyes that might be seen by a marauding mob. Aiyana Bartlett and Farah Ashraf bring their characters to sparkling life with a freshness and innocence to give us teen girls who could be found anywhere. They have their ups and downs, their petty rows, their sad, silly and sometimes serious moments while the world around them is changing. For Santi and Naz that change means that a wonderful chapter in their lives is over, consigned to a sad memory. Partition for them has been personal. Directed by Madelaine Moore Santi and Naz will renew their friendship to 26-10-24 and will meet again at Derby Theatre on 08-11-24. Roger Clarke 25-10-24 Derby on 08-11-24. |
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