IN celebrating our various ethnicities, GEMS Theatre Productions in collaboration with NRITYAGEET Dance Theatre will be staging the production, ‘FROM WHENCE WE CAME – The Indian Experience,’ on March 14 at the National Cultural Centre starting at 20:00hrs and March 15 at 16:00hrs.

According to a press release, the production is based on the play, ‘Kisna-From whence we came British India to British Guiana,’ and is written by Dr Seeta Shah Roath and directed by Sonia Yarde.

Tickets are $3,000 & $2000 and are available at the Box Office at the National Cultural Centre.

There will be five school shows from 09:00hrs on March 16 to 20. All schools attending will be coordinated through the Ministry of Education.

Further, the release said that this play represents the second in the series of such a production. The first being held from January 11-13, depicting the Chinese Experience.

Roath did the historical research for the play.

It was explained that the stage play is based on the book written by Dr Seeta Shah Roath titled, “Kisna: From Whence We Came – British India to British Guiana.”

LOGLINE
Kidnapped, lured by high-paying jobs, and seeking refuge from prosecutors, young Indian men and women were brought into the Demerara Depot in Garden Reach, Calcutta of 1856, from whence they shared the arduous journey across two oceans to reach a strange land, strange people, and challenges never envisaged.

SYNOPSIS
A historical drama, this full-length stage play captures the historical, geographical, and human elements of the Indian Indentured System from British India to British Guiana. Set in the 1800s, events, places, people’s attitudes, and behaviours are as described by governors’ reports, newspapers, court records, other archival records, oral history, and transcripts of interviews with survivors and descendants of the system. Accounts of circumstances surrounding deaths, beatings, conflicts, uprisings, and cultural retentions are real and not imagined. These accounts are woven within the story and become a part of the characters’ lives, challenges met, sorrows, and joys experienced.

The protagonists are recruited in multiple ways and experience the long, agonising wait at the depot in Calcutta. This is the place where the long arm of the law sometimes reaches, where marriages of convenience are common, medical examinations are not always as thorough as regulations require, and an attempt is made to acclimatise recruits to the kinds of food most often used on sailing ships carrying Indian labourers. The protagonists’ lives show the composite experiences of the Indian indentured labourers.

Antagonists are the officers and agents of the East India Company; the exploitative planter class in British Guiana; the Creole police who were once slaves, and Indian drivers or field supervisors who, over years of acculturation, carried out the wishes of the planters and estate managers. Often, these drivers gave way to greed and opportunistic endeavours that were not always in the best interest of their fellow Indians. Bullying and intimidation were not uncommon.

The release said that this play paints a vivid tapestry of the challenges met, sorrows endured, and fleeting joys through cultural and religious retentions, bringing to life the indomitable spirit of those who lived through this chapter of history. It’s a story of survival, resilience, and the unyielding human spirit, it said, adding that at the same time, it provides an educational journey through the whys, where, when, and how of the Indian Indentured System from British India to British Guiana and highlights important cultural-retention patterns that led to becoming Indo-Guyanese and making important strides in building a strong multicultural Guyana.

The play culminates with the storyteller recounting to students’ prominent figures in Business – Banking, Manufacturing, Agriculture; Politics; Education, Public and Civic, and other areas.

The grand finale includes Nadira Shah, M.S. of Nrityageet fame and popular international Guyanese chutney singer with the song – ‘Desi from Guyana,’ backed by Berbice Delight chutney dancers, the release added.