Towards the end of Please Don’t Beat Me, Sir! there is an interview with two boys who had written a play about the Budhan Theatre library: Harry and Siddharth. They admit how scared they were that someone might forget their lines. We always get a laugh when they reveal that they wrote the mother role in their play just for the girl Nandini because they knew she would be good in the fight scene. Well, shortly after we finished primary shooting, Harry’s father passed away. You might remember Harry’s father from the film. He was the one who was beaten by the police after he tried to “go straight” by opening a store. Once a promising student and playwright, his father’s death forced Harry to leave Budhan Theatre to work at his father’s shop on the main road. Now history is repeating itself as Harry is frequently in trouble with the police. Siddharth, on the other hand, was able to continue with the theater. He is still in school, now in 11th grade and studying arts.

Over six years filming in Chharanagar we heard many such stories. For several years now we have been funding the Budhan Theatre Library and informal school program through our non-profit organization Vimukta. Now, we are happy to announce a new program to directly support the children’s wing of Budhan Theatre. We believe that this program offers children the environment and resources they need to escape the vicious cycle of police violence and crime. Just $1,600 will keep the children’s theater program running for a full year, ensuring that three members of the adult theater program are able to provide regular training and supervision as well as paying for basic supplies. Our goal is to raise $8,000 by the end of the year – enough to keep the program running through 2018 without having to fundraise every year, hopefully allowing us to begin looking at other ways we might help. We have already raised over $900, please give now to help us achieve our goal.

You can also help by sharing this blog post with a friend, or by posting it to Twitter or Facebook.

Vimukta is not your ordinary charity. One hundred percent of the donations we receive (after the credit card companies have taken their fee) go directly to Budhan Theatre, a grass-roots community-based organization with a proven track record. As political and cultural activists Budhan Theatre have to be extra careful in their finances. They have an external committee which double checks their books every year. Moreover, Vimukta doesn’t release a dime to Budhan Theatre until we’ve received a thorough accounting of how they’ve spent the funds from the previous year and those accounts are available to our donors. If you’d like to help out, you can do so on on the right of this page.

by Roxy Gagdekar

(Submitted September 2, 2011)

Theatre

Adult Theatre

In the year 2010-11, the members of Budhan Theatre were salaried, which gave a boost to the theatre activities. Five new plays were produced: (1) The Story of Me and You; (2) Goat, written by Sarveswar Dayal; (3) Dayashanker’s Diary; (4) We are Nomads, Sir (with new artists from Maninagar); and (5) Safarnama, a collage of all the plays and a few films of Budhan Theatre.

We also performed Accidental Death of an Anarchist at the Tamashaa festival with the Samvedna Group on April 30, 2011. The Story of Me and You debuted there, and Goat was performed the next day. We are Nomads, Sir was performed in Tejgadh by the girls’ group of Maninagar. Performances of Dayashanker’s Diary are ongoing in Chharanagar.

Our annual Liberation Day (Vimukta Diwas) celebrartion was held on August 31, 2011 at the Kutch Kadva Patidar Hall in Naroda. We performed Safarnama and Bakri  for about 1000 people.

Children’s Theatre

The children’s theater created two new plays in Bhantu language, Bhanatara Bigara Ka Jivan (Life Without Education) and Mahari Library (Our Library). Both were performed in celebration of Republic Day on January 26, 2011. The earlier production Charan Das Chor was performed during the theatre festival. A new play Raja Sansi (The Sansi King) is in rehearsals and will be ready by August 5, 2011.

Education

Budhan School of Theatre, Journalism and Media

Two certificate courses were conducted from July 1, 2010 to December 31, 2010.  “Workshop in Basic Theatre,” a three months certificate course, was conducted for the Theatre, while a four month “Journalism Workshop” was conducted from September 1, 2010 to December 31, 2010.  Fifteen students attended both the journalism workshop and the theatre workshop. The diploma course affiliated with IGNOU began on July 15, 2011. Currently there are twelve students enrolled in the diploma course in theatre, journalism and media, while twenty students are enrolled in the certificate course in theatre arts. Classes for both courses convene at the Chharanagar Library.

Informal Education

The non-formal education system at the Budhan School has fifty students for the academic year 2010-11. Students from std 1st to 10th were enrolled and were taught the basics of English, Gujarati and Mathematics. There are sixty students enrolled for the academic year 2011-12. This year we have started to review the students monthly, and building a bridge between the Budhan Theatre and the children’s parents.

Montessori Workshops

At the library, we are utilizing the unique Montessori method to teach students. With the help of many educational tools, and teaching through playing with the students, the students have engaged in several different educational, artistic and recreational activities. Over one hundred students have benefitted from these activities, along with a creative workshop organized with the help of students from the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad.

Computer classes

Currently 10 students have been trained for basic computer through the computer classes at the Chharangar Library.

Music

A music workshop teaching the students basic harmonium and different folk music have been conducted regularly. Ten students have so far been able to play the drums and the harmonium.

Coordination with other groups

Ball State University

Budhan Theatre hosted a group of twenty-five students from Ball State University, USA from January to February, 2011. The students worked in the Chharanagar Library and conducted a geographical survey of Chharanagar. At the end of these activities, the students prepared a map of Chharanagar.

Mahindra School, Pune 

A group of students from Mahindra School, Pune visited the library for a day in July 2011. Students from different countries on exchange to India visited the library and participated in a theatre workshop.

Mahatma Gandhi International School

In May 2011, a group of students from France, with the help of Mahatma Gandhi International School, visited the library and participated in a creative workshop.

Legal Defense for DNT Communities

Maninagar

Budhan Theatre successfully coordinated the Maninagar Case for housing rights of DNTs, winning a favorable decision in the Supreme Court of India.

For many years Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (“AMC”) demolished the huts of DNT people in the Maninangar area of Ahmedabad city. These demolitions were part of the beautification of the city and the DNT people were helpless as they did not have documentary proof to fight the legal battle against eviction. In 2008, Budhan Theatre filed a legal case with the available documents in the high court for the housing right of DNTs, including Dabgar (Sansi), Rajbhoi and Vaghri. We received assistance from our friend and colleague Dr. Devy, who introduced us to Adv. Megha Jani. Adv. Jani filed a case in the Gujarat High Court and obtained an interim stay order, allowing the DNTs to remain in their homes until the court decision was rendered.   After two years of struggle, the honourable court dismissed the case, but AMC filed for eviction in the Honourable Supreme Court (“SC”) of India.  After consulting with the DNT community, we challenged the AMC in SC and decided to fight until justice was served. Our advocate filed a reply in the SC and, with help from other lawyers of the SC, we fought this case for one and a half years.  After a long battle, on April 11^th the SC issued a Stay Order and mandated that the State Government provide land to the affected people.

In addition, Budhan Theatre volunteers tirelessly visited community members and participated in many other developmental activities.  We admitted sixty students from Maninagar Basti who were not attending school (most of them dropouts) into private and government schools in Maninagar and nearby areas.  We also started two different NFE centers which are held at Maninagar Basti, with fifty students in the morning shift every day.  Also, Budhan Theatre program Manager Kalpana Gagdekar has developed a girls’ theatre group in the community and they are now beginning to perform their social and political issues through theatre.

Henry Schwarz, Alan Sussman, Shashwati and I created Vimukta to help support Budhan Theatre’s community development activities. For the past few years we’ve been supporting a community library and informal school in the community, but now that the film is coming out we are getting ready to support more ambitious projects. To prepare for that we needed to launch a social media campaign centered around a website redesign. For the past month I’ve been working with Kellen Parker of Spectacle Creative Media who has been very generous with his time helping me achieve what I think is a look that reflects something of the community we work with. A site that is neither generic nor corporate nor stereotypical of the numerous clichés of Indian non-profits. I hope we have achieved what we set out to do. Let us know what you think in the comments!

Each year we raise $1000 to help fund the Chharanagar library. This library is much more than a library, its a community center and an informal school as well. But its first and foremost a library – and a very good one at that! It houses a large collection of (mostly donated) books in three languages: English, Hindi, and Gujarati.

We’ve already raised $700 towards this year’s goal. Please help us raise the last $300 before new year by using the widget below. Thank you!

[Attention: Please help us raise Vimukta's membership count! Scroll to the end for details.]

The Budhan Theatre Library is much more than just a library; its a community center and an informal school as well. But its first and foremost a library – and a very good one at that! It houses a large collection of (mostly donated) books in three languages: English, Hindi, and Gujarati. Each book has been carefully cataloged and given a call number! In the above picture you see Ruchika updating the catalog for a man who has just borrowed the book Six Russian Short Novels.

Shashwati and I have been visiting Chharanagar every year for the past four years, to work on our nearly completed documentary film, and every time we go the library has moved to a new building. Yet somehow this valuable community resource not only remains in tact, but manages to flourish.

The current library is not the first library in the community. That would have been the meager collection of books housed at the Reform Club Library, hosted by the father of journalist and Budhan Theatre member Roxy Gagdekar. Roxy’s father died when he was still a teenager. He died after being released from police custody, where he had been severely beaten. The Chhara continue to suffer from police brutality, as documented in Budhan Theatre’s powerful plays, but the new library offers children a safe haven where they can learn, play games, and just be kids. (See this wonderful video by Dakxin Bajrange of the children making music with the tools their mothers use to brew liquor.)

It was to support this library that Shashwati and I, together with our producer Henry Schwartz (who did the hard work of applying for 501(c)3 status) initially founded Vimukta. The library doesn’t cost much to maintain. Rent, and a small stipend for the young people who work there, currently costs a mere $1000 a year.

Donations are always welcome, and any amount over our annual goal will be held in trust by the Bhasha Research and Publication Center until such a time as Vimukta and Budhan Theatre are ready to expand our efforts beyond the library. And, indeed, we have big plans. Our dream is to set up a scholarship for Chhara girls, many of whom drop out of school to marry at a very young age. Such a scholarship would be contingent on their finishing school. We’d also like to help Budhan Theatre buy a permanent home for the library.

But to do all that we need your help. We expect that our film, when it comes out, will be a powerful recruiting tool for Vimukta, but we’d like to have a strong network of supporters already in place before that happens. Currently our Facebook group has 24 members. We’d like to see that grow to 500. Please join. Or, if Facebook isn’t your thing, please sign up for our newsletter directly on our website. We know as well as anybody how annoying it can be to be flooded with e-mail, and we promise to keep our e-mails announcements to the bare minimum (about four a year, on average). If you are already a member, please help by spreading the word and inviting your friends.

Thanks!