HEY, HERO
A new play performed as a staged reading
Directed by Ajit Chitturi.

(Reading on August 10, 2002. Amethyst, Chennai)
We need heroes in our lives, whether real as a Gandhi or imaginary as a Spiderman. But what happens if our hero no longer wants to be one. 'Hey, Hero' is about the conflict in a man between the image he has created of himself and his efforts to escape it. But can he? And will those who only see that image of him, allow him to? None of us is really who we are. We project an image of ourselves to the outer world and we're always perceived then as that person. Arjun, the dhadha of his slum, was a hard violent, but just, man. Prison has changed him and when he's freed, he no longer wants to be a hero. But neither his followers, the rival gang nor the police will believe him or allow him to escape his image.

ARJUN (painful, near) Help me up.
LAKSHMAN (keeping a distance) I don't believe it. I've never seen anyone hit you. Even as a child, one look from you frightened them away. (pause)That Bala isn't bad by himself. It's Ramesh. He's the evil one.
ARJUN: I've always known that. (pause) He should be dhadha then.
LAKSHMAN: Why? He lets Bala do his work. Bala gets blamed. It's best to listen to Ramesh only. Bala moves his mouth but it's Ramesh talking always. (pause) Weren't you frightened?
ARJUN: No, I'm never frightened. Even now.
LAKSHMAN; I'm always frightened. Even then. If anything happened to you...
(moves to help Arjun up) What happened to you?
ARJUN: I saw god. No, I met him, I think. (sees Lakshman's strange look) I've not gone mad, I'm not seeing spirits or ghosts. (pauses) I told you I'd been put in the small box. When they let me out, I was mad. I was wanting to kill, someone, anyone. No one had ever treated me as if I were a dog to be locked up in the blackness. I'd be killed too, I knew that and my only worry was who would look after you. That's when I met Krishna.
LAKSHMAN: (naïve) Was he blue, as they show him in paintings? I love his colour.
ARJUN: He wasn't blue. He was a pale, worn brown. The prison walls had rubbed him smooth. His hair was whiter than the sky in blinding light. He saw my rage and spoke to me. I would've killed him then but he too wasn't frightened. He was
calm, soft, gentle. He asked me to think upon one question only and if I could answer it truthfully, he wouldn't stop me doing what I wanted to do. The question was simple: who am I? He said he'd wait until I found the answer, but it had to be the true one, not a lie. I said at once I am a rage. He said it was an emotion, not an answer, it wouldn't last. Then I'd be something else. I said I'm Arjun, he said it was a name, and I could be Ram too, then who was I? I began to get a headache trying to answer him. Everything I said didn't satisfy him. We would talk daily on this question. I learnt something about him. He had been in prison 50 years. In me, he saw himself as the that long lost young man.
LAKSHMAN: What had he done? Fifty years!!!
ARJUN: He was a murderer. He no longer remembered whom he'd murdered, it was no longer important. He could not even remember why he'd murdered. He even wondered whether he had been the murderer or whether it was someone else whom he'd once known. Who was that someone else? Slowly, over the months, we got rid of many things I was not. I wasn't rage or Arjun or love or hate or envy or hunger. Each night before I slept, I would ask : who am I? And I woke each morning, not knowing the answer. We'd meet and he would tease me, well, who are you today? He had led me into a house with a thousand doors which only opened into other rooms. There was no escape. I no longer wanted to satisfy him with an answer but myself.
LAKSHMAN: Did you find it?
ARJUN: Not yet. I went to see him yesterday. He was so happy to see me. He too wanted to know.
LAKSHMAN: (laughs) I bet he doesn't know the answer.
ARJUN: No, he knows it.
LAKSHMAN: Then get him to tell you, so you can get on with being who you are.
ARJUN: He knows his answer. That doesn't help me to answer my own question Who am I. You can't steal someone else's answer, you must find it yourself.
LAKSHMAN: Now I'm getting the headache.
ARJUN:(laughs) Well, ask yourself : who am I? And get a bigger one.
LAKSHMAN: I'm your brother and that's all I need to know about who I am.