The Play

The other night I went to a play that was in this beautiful outside amphitheatre. The play that I went to was put on by a near by college that contained students that were mostly middle and upper-class Hindus. The play itself was in Gujarati so we didn’t know what was being said but we were told the plot before we went to the play. Luckily Prersis, who is basically our Ahmedabad city coordinator, sat next to us and answered our questions through out the play. The play was a bout a Hindu woman who just graduated college and obtained her law degree and when she arrived home her father was summoned to court and accused for leading the Hindus in raping and murdering thousands of Muslims in the 2002 riots. The play was great but what I really loved was the dialogue afterwards. The director gave ten minutes for the audience to ask questions after the play and it sparked a very heated debate. Everyone in the audience looked educated and we learned that most people in the audience were upper/middle class Hindus.  The debate was so interesting because everyone wanted to share his or her views about the 2002 riots. One man said that  we all need to get over what happened in 2002 and put in our past. Another man said he is a Muslim that lived through the 2002 riots and he is still waiting for an apology. A girl stood up and said that we need to stop considering people different than us and she said she is Hindu and her best friend is Muslim but she does not consider her a Muslim but just as her best friend and treating people in that way is the only way to make sure another genocide does not happen again.  The dialogue was so interesting because the genocide is so fresh and there is still so much tension. Presis told us that there are still many upper class Hindus that believe the Muslims deserved to be murdered. That amazed me but the more I thought about it I thought how America have corrupt beliefs as well. Many Americans believe that all Muslims are terrorists. Many Americans believe that if their daughter marries a man of a different race it will bring shame onto their family. Many Americans also believe that if you are poor that means you are lazy. America, just like places all over the world is full of horrible beliefs that if someone is different than you then they are automatically a bad person.  I challenge you to accept the girl’s challenge who stood up and talked after the play. That is: next time you see someone different than you, don’t focus on how they are different than you but just think of them as a friend.