Her Letters

"Indian artists tend to treat the celebrated work of Rabindranath Tagore with kid gloves. But in adapting the master's 1914 Bengali short story Streer Patra, the Mumbai-based collective Qissa Kothi has taken a bold, and mostly successful, approach.' - India Today HER LETTERS is based on Rabindranath Tagore’s short story Streer Patra. It was written a hundred years from now in 1914. What is beautiful about the story is that it is contemporary. This is also what makes it tragic since it reminds us that not much has changed in the last hundred years, in so far as how we treat women. Mrinal writes a letter to her husband while on a pilgrimage for which her husband does not accompany her. She realizes soon how she had become bound to her habits and revisits her relationship with Bindu, the unwanted guest in her house. Was she her lover? We do not know. She does not make it clear to us or to her husband. HER LETTERS as it was adapted was woven with narratives from the lives of the performers as also with addition texts and poetry from Virginia Woolf and Amrita Pritam. Director: Sharmistha Saha Adaptation from Rabindranath Tagore's 'Streer Patra': Sharmistha Saha Light designer: Jatin Negi Costumes: Maulik Pandey Props: Ashish Music: Heineli, Rabindrasangeet and other compositions and performance by Ssamaran. Additional Text: Virginia Woolf's suicide note, Amrita Pritam's poetry, Lata Singh, Sukeerti Sharma, Bharti Perwani. Production: Saurav Pratap Singh, Gaurav Commissioned by Tagore Centre Berlin, Germany in 2014.