Is there anyone out there who's a woman and has a loud message?

Hailing from different lands, five women playwright-directors are breaking the silence on issues and labels, which have for centuries defined the woman

Give me a moment. I need to understand/ absorb this. Just a minute ago, we were laughing out loud - what happened exactly that got us all teary-eyed. Weren't we talking of how painful (physically and mentally) it is to get our brows threaded (every few days) and then suddenly. we had goose bumps as one amongst us narrated a tale of an acid victim. It got us angry, upset. The mood had changed and just like that we knew what we were here for.
We're at The Junction, Al Quoz.
Rashmi Kotriwala, one of the founding partners of the community theatre space, has put us in the green room. There are five of us - we don't know each other (yet). We've seen each other - on the stage, in the wings, and among the audience. Kotriwala, the festival director of Queens Of Drama 2017, has a dream and she's decided to make us a part of it. This is the second edition of the festival that aspires to put women from the UAE in the forefront.
"I started out on this journey with a thought that I need to make the festival a meaningful exercise of self-expression. I met some amazing writers and directors over the last few years of my theatrical journey and thought that we could have freshly written scripts directed by them."
As for me, that's how I met the other four queens - Dhruti Shah D'souza, Farheen Khan, Peri Desai, and Rosine Saad. As for our conversations, not a lot has changed - except that now we are a squad that has chosen to define womanhood. Over many cups of coffee, we experience a spectrum of emotions and we embrace each. We're not feminists. We're storytellers. We wish to narrate tales, to men and women alike. We stage on April 6, 7, and 8 at The Junction. We hope that you can be part of this journey.
purva@khaleejtimes.com
A storyteller, Purva is in search of her favourite word.

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