Amrith Lal picks his favourite read of 2024
A theatre stalwart’s recounting of his journey in a near-dispassionate tone is contemporary history told in a very subjective manner but without losing sense of the many layers that shape people’s experiences
Good autobiographies become biographies of a nation and its people. Before I Forget, the autobiography of MK Raina, actor-activist and an icon of Indian theatre, is one such work that transcends the personal story it seeks to tell us and becomes the narration of some of the most harrowing times our country has lived through and many redeeming acts that give us hope.
Raina was born in a Kashmiri Pandit family in Srinagar, and he is as old as independent India. He finished school and college in Srinagar in exciting but relatively peaceful times, studied at the National School of Drama in Delhi, made his name in the theatre world, became active in the national capital’s Left cultural scene, lived through the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, witnessed the trauma of Kashmir, the loss of old ways and home in the 1980s, the rise of Hindu right-wing politics and the demolition of Babri Masjid, and so on.
In a near-dispassionate tone, without anger, rancour or regret, Raina recounts his journey, a people’s journey, through history. In many ways, Before I Forget is contemporary history, of course told in a very subjective manner but without losing sense of the many layers that shape people’s experiences. Is there a sharp political perspective evident in this narration? Yes, but Raina refuses to be judgmental, especially when he talks about people. And the cast has its share of bigoted people, but Raina eschews polemic as he speaks about them. Empathy is the dominant rasa in the Raina chronicles.
Raina describes himself as a child of India’s socialism. In an era of Nehru-bashing, Raina reminds us that the Indian State, though stretched for resources, helped many like him by providing free education, scholarships and such to hope and dream — and many like Raina repaid the debt by contributing to the making of modern India. And, whenever that project started to flail — in 1975 (Emergency), 1984 (the anti-Sikh riots in Delhi following the assassination of Indira Gandhi), 1992 (demolition of Babri Masjid) or 1990s Kashmir (rise of militancy, the forced exodus of Kashmiri Pandits) — people like him have intervened through plain public service and political and cultural campaigns to resist the tide of hate and violence.
So, we get to read about Nagrik Ekta Manch, a collective of activists, academicians, and regular citizens that worked in the aftermath of the violence in Delhi after the assassination of then prime minister Indira Gandhi. (She had once invited Raina and a few others to her residence and even requested him to perform a play on Kabir that he had staged at the lawns of the prime minister’s residence. Raina ignored the request). There is a recounting of a strange film project that Saaed Mirza started on post-Bluestar Punjab that faded away.
The most poignant chapters concern Raina’s return to Kashmir after the 1990s, theatre workshops in the shadow of militancy, his work with children scarred by violence, with the Bhand Pather theatre tradition. He was successful in reviving the Bhand Pather folk tradition that threatened to go into oblivion during militancy, producing Shakespeare (King Lear) and performing before rural audiences in Kashmir. Raina’s interventions spark the question: Can culture rescue politics when a society falls into the abyss of hate, bigotry, and violence? Before I Forget does not provide answers. But it ignites hope — and reinforces our faith in human agency.
