Is it really possible for a play to be relevant – however one might choose to define the term – and still be simple and uncomplicated in both content and narration? The question first occurred at a time when my professional work involved an exploration of the organic links between changing institutional structures in society and changing societal value systems. I started writing a series of short plays as reflections of those changes in society, part real-life, part fictional. Head Start was one such dramatization, attempting to encapsulate the changing perceptions of education over three generations, but in as un-academic a way as possible.
Salt Licks and Head Start are constructed as 2-part plays. Either part can be performed by itself as a one-act piece. Together they make a full length play. People have preferred to do the two parts together. The play runs its course in two parallel streams. The Snips peep into the lives of Pavi and her two Primary School kids, Abhi and Munni. The Snaps take us into the home of Ramki, a graduate engineer in the making. There is a brief confluence of the streams towards the end.
Ten years after the remarkable David Horsburgh left us, there were signs of a fresh appreciation of his seminal contributions in development education. The play is, in some way, about education, about three generations of experience with education in India. It was most fitting that the opening performances were for CRY.