“Our aim was to remind people of the still unresolved issue,” says Riyaz Usman, whose directorial play The Last Letter, delves into the Rohith Vemula suicide incident from an apolitical point of view.
The play, which was screened on Thursday in the city, gave a visual interpretation of the suicide note and the letters from the Human Resources Department (HRD) of India.
Our society tends to forget an issue when something new crops up, says Riyaz. “This issue has not been resolved, yet people have forgotten about it,” he says. The play thus works more or less like a reminder without accusing or pointing fingers at anyone. “All we are doing is telling people, ‘This happened, do you remember?’.”
He also thinks every artist has a sense of responsibility to the society and needs to react to the wrongs in it. “Not only as an artiste but as a society we should learn to realise and resolve them as quickly as possible,” he says.
The play has been dealt very sensibly thinks Vishal Mitra, a member of the play. Says Vishal, “Initially, when Riyaz came up with the idea of this play, there was apprehension. After all it was a national-level political issue and had to be dealt with with a very balanced approach.”
That’s where Riyaz’s thorough research helped. “We went through the exchanges between the ministry and university, and also spoke to people close to Rohith.” informs Riyaz.
Poetry written by Sangh Ghosh and Vatingee among others was handpicked to fit the context.
