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Synopsis

The play begins with three people, a man and two women. The man suggests they begin a story using their combination of three. The story begins with three elderly people in a park in Mylapore, Chennai, two sisters, Alamu and Pattu, and a man, Kittu. The older woman Pattu is stunned to know her sister Alamu is fond of the stranger, and they’d worked together in an office. Having tightly controlled her younger sister’s life, Pattu now sees her drifting away, and her lonely life unravelling. The second part has two nursing sisters and the same Kittu ten years earlier. They are in a park in Kochi, Kerala. Kittu is injured after being attacked by a mob. The older nurse is suspicious, and asks if he was injured because he stayed away from a political strike and was a traitor who squealed on the strikers. The younger nurse is sympathetic because her own brother, now missing, is a rabid and unsympathetic activist. Kittu replies bitterly that his only fault is that he’s from a neighbouring state and loved a girl from this one. The younger one stays back with him, understanding his plight while the older nurse walks away to join duty. The third scene has Maria and Lilia, two young sisters from a convent in Goa, and Kittu, ten years earlier from the previous scene. The girls find a nude painting done by Kittu, and laugh and blush. They talk to Kittu about religion, freedom, artistic licence, sexual indulgence, and life inside a convent. Kittu then paints them wearing skirts instead of their habits, and says that this is how he sees them. He hands over the painting to them. We then return to the man and two women on stage. The play has been published by Adisakrit as part of an anthology titled 'Five and Other Plays', available on Amazon.

Duration

80   Minutes

No of characters

3