Slighted Souls - A political stage play
On one side Dramatis Personae On the other
Muthyal Rao, Doraof Rampur. Yellaiah, a peasant.
Papa Rao, Police Patel. Mallamma, Yellaiah’s wife.
Rami Reddy, Patwari. Narsimma, Yellaiah’s son.
Papi Reddy, landlord. Sarakka, Yellaiah’s daughter.
Shaukar Suryam, moneylender. Maisamma, Mallamma’s mother.
Veeraiah, Head Constable. Yadagiri, Maisamma’s son.
Venkataswamy, MLA. Renuka, Yadagiri’s daughter
Mallesam Goud, ex-MLA. Maisaiah, a peasant.
Narsi Reddy, son of Rami Reddy. Lachamma, Maisaiah’s wife
Henchmen, Police Constables, Madanna, head of a naxal dalam
Capt. Kapoor, Home Guards/ Mallanna, Madanna’s confidant.
Greyhounds
Of the other side on this sideSrisailam, Narsimma’s friend
Anasuya, Yadagiri’s wife. Nirmala, victim of Narsi Reddy.
Saailu, Anasuya’s brother.Annalu, and onlookers.
On neither side: Raja, the six-year old grandson of the I.G of A. P. Police.
Scene – 1
Voice Over: Under the British Raj in India, the self-indulging Nizams of Hyderabad abdicated the administration of their vast principality to doralu,the village heads, letting them turn the areas under their domain into their personal fiefdoms. While the successive Nizams were obsessed with building palaces and acquiring jewelry, the village heads succeeded in ushering in an oppressive era of tyrannical order. Acting as loose cannon from their palatial houses called gadis, the doralu succeeded in foisting an inimical feudal order upon the downtrodden dalits. Besides making these dalits toil for them as cheap labor without impunity, the doralu had no qualms in making vassals out of the hapless women folk. What with the police patelsand the revenue patwarisin nexus with the landed gentry and the moneyed shaukars making a common cause with the doralu in their unabated exploitation, their sub-human condition ensured that the dalitswere distressed economically, degraded socially and debased morally. Ironically, lending the privileged few the muscle power to perpetrate the inimical social order were their henchmen from the other backward classes. Moreover, given the British political pragmatism of an indifference to the Indian caste conundrum the downtrodden dalits had nowhere to run for cover.