Summary
The setting is an empty hall with a built-in platform, a couple of old chairs, a box, and other random things. Portraits of national leaders hang on the wall, as does a picture of Ganesha on the door.
Samant unlocks the door, holding a lock, key, toy parrot, and book. He announces that this is the hall and it seems like it has been cleaned for the show tonight; he invites Benare in. She has caught her finger in the bolt, and he tells her to suck on it and make it feel better.
Benare smiles at him that it is nothing and that she feels wonderful today. She is happy they rushed ahead from the others. In fact, she smiles, she likes him very much and thinks he is a “very pure and good person” (18). He is a little embarrassed, but when she says she likes the hall too, he begins talking about how all the village functions take place here.
Benare asks if his wife comes here for the women’s bhajan group; he replies that he does not have a wife and that the parrot is a toy for his nephew. He adds that he comes to this hall for every show and never misses the entertainment.
Benare comes close to him and asks how they pull off the magic tricks. He is unsettled by her closeness but tries to show her how they pretend to cut the tongue. Benare wonders where everyone else is; when school starts, she says, her foot is already on the threshold: she is a teacher and she never gets behind with her lessons.
Samant asks her if she is a schoolmarm; she corrects him and says she is a teacher. Samant tries to explain that he just means a schoolmarm is someone who teaches children. Benare comments that children are better than adults because they do not pretend they know everything. She asks Samant to open the window, and the breeze makes her happy.
Samant asks if she wants to sit and she declines, saying she is used to standing all day. She laughs that her class is scared of her and the children would do anything for her. She’d “give the last drop of my blood to teach them” (20). This makes others jealous, but she is not sure what they think they could do to her, nor why they are holding an enquiry. Her teaching is perfect, she insists, and she’s put her whole life into it. She’s never hurt anyone and if they want to throw her out, so be it. Her hands stray to her stomach. She stops talking and drops it, embarrassed.
Samant does not know what to say and wonders where the others are as well. Benare composes herself and says she is fine; she starts singing an English song. Then, she asks Samant if he knows what they are doing today—it is a Mock Lawcourt. He is unsure what that is, so she explains it is a make-believe court. The program, as chairman Kashikar says, is about spreading enlightenment. She rolls her eyes at Kashikar’s desire to always have a “Prime Objective,” and at his silly housewife, Mrs. Kashikar, who has no child.
Curious, Samant asks if the Kashikars are childless. Benare tells him they took in a young boy, Balu Rodke, educated him, and practically made a slave out of him. As for the others coming, there is an expert on the law—such an expert that no client will go near him. Today he will play a great barrister, no doubt. She continues in her teasing tone, saying there is a great intellectual as well, one who hides his head when real problems arise.
When Samant asks what the trial is about, Benare replies that it is a case against President Johnson for producing atomic weapons. Before Samant can reply with more than an exclamation, Benare hears voices and suggests they hide. The two of them conceal themselves and then jump out when the others come in.
After recovering from the fright, Sukhatme sighs that Benare does not seem to want to grow up. Benare replies that in the classroom she is the “soul of seriousness,” but she doesn't see why she ought to be so here. People should laugh, play, sing, and dance. Life is one’s own, no one else’s, and every minute is precious.
Ponkshe enters and Benare teases him about his nervousness. Sukhatme says Ponkshe looks impressive on stage and no one would believe he’s taken his Inter-Science for the second time and works as a clerk in the Central Telegraph Office. Annoyed when Rodke laughs, Ponkshe retorts that at least he didn’t fail on his father’s money.
Benare changes the subject to what she used to do when she was a child: write lovely things in her books' covers. Rodke wants to copy down her verses, but she scolds him to really listen and absorb before simply copying things down.
Benare suggests she tell a story. Rodke sits down and Ponkshe leaves. Instead, Benare recites a poem, but he stops in the middle and starts a song. Sukhatme sits and Samant listens carefully. Karnik, the experimental theatre actor, enters, wondering what is going on.
Sukhatme tells Benare her singing was sweet, and she sticks her tongue out. Karnik is impressed with the hall, which makes Benare excited that their show will go over well. She asks where Mrs. Kashikar is, and Karnik replies that they’re on their way and are late because Mr. Kashikar wanted to buy her a garland for her hair. Benare says she has noticed something about them: even though she is not educated and he is just a social worker, they are both full of life and it is nice to see.
Karnik suggests that every time he sees something like that, he suspects something is different in private. This offends Rodke, but Karnik tells him he is a child and should not meddle in what he does not understand.
Benare asks Samant for chairs. Ponkshe is back, miffed that the group seems to be planning everything in advance when he’d rather be spontaneous. Samant brings the chairs and they sit down. Ponkshe asks for tea.
The Kashikars enter. They ask if Balu brought all the luggage, and he confirms that he did. Kashikar sighs that Balu always forgets, but he hopes he’s brought the judge’s wig. Irritated, Rodke says he did. Kashikar says he was going to bring a garland for Benare too, but she laughs that she earns her own living and never feels like buying garlands.
Karnik, Sukhatme, and Kashikar start talking about how actors will enter. Samant is confused when they mention President Johnson, and Rodke tells him Karnik plays the president. Rodke wonders aloud where Professor Damle is. Benare falls silent and stands by Ponkshe, trying to talk to him. He is silent. Mrs. Kashikar volunteers that Damle will be late because he has a symposium.
In a gap in the conversation, Ponkshe asks Benare about the girl she found for him, the one in trouble. She is confused.
The group argues over whether or not Professor Damle will come. Mrs. Kashikar wonders who will play counsel for the accused, and Sukhatme says he will, as he is actually a lawyer. They agree. Rawte is also not coming and Rodke wants to play the part of the fourth witness, saying he knows the lines, but Karnik tells him no. Sukhatme suggests Samant do it. Samant is startled and says he has never done this before, but Sukhatme volunteers to help prepare him.
Mrs. Kashikar asks if he’s seen a court, and he says he never has in his life. At Samant’s fearful expression, Mrs. Kashikar suggests they help prepare him. Benare is fine with this, but she wishes she had her book to read. Samant is fine with a rehearsal, hoping he will be reassured. Benare comments that they’ve performed this trial seven times in the last three months; she has no objection to doing it again, though she thinks tonight’s show will fall flat.
Sukhatme agrees, saying maybe they ought to do an imaginary case so Samant can see how the court functions. It will be more fun that way. Karnik is excited and says they do this in Drama Theory. Benare says she is game for this as well. Mrs. Kashikar gives Samant money to fetch cigarettes while the group plans it out. Benare leaves for the bathroom to wash her face.
Karnik calls over Ponkshe, Kashikar, Mrs. Kashikar, and Sukhatme. He asks if the case will be the same. Sukhatme will be the lawyer, but Mrs. Kashikar suggests a new accused. Karnik asks Ponkshe if he knows something, and nods in Benare’s direction. Sukhatme suggests Rodke, who is delighted, but Kashikar says he will do it and it ought to be a serious affair. Mrs. Kashikar volunteers, but her husband refuses. They finally agree that it ought to be Benare, and Mrs. Kashikar says it will be interesting to see the trial of a woman. Sukhatme muses that “when there’s a woman on the dock, the case does have a different complexion…That is my experience” (38).
They also think the case should be a charge of social significance, and they begin whispering together. They have Rodke organize the room for the court. Most go into the wings and wait for Benare. She comes out singing and looking refreshed. Ponkshe approaches her and announces she has been arrested on suspicion of a very serious crime and is brought before the bar of the court.
Benare is shocked, watching the others fill their positions. Kashikar sits as the judge, Sukhatme puts on his black lawyer’s gown. Kashikar says solemnly that she is accused of the crime of infanticide, and asks if she is guilty of it.
Analysis
Silence! The Court is in Session is perhaps Vijay Tendulkar’s most famous work, one that designates a turning point in his literary output. Arka Pramanick suggests that it represents the move toward his favorite subject, “the middle class man”: “for the first time in his dramatic career he began to look into the psyche of his subject and focus his attention on the ugliness he detected therein.” Silence! gives the audience a small cross-section of Indian middle-class society, and as Arundhati Banerjee notes (quoted in Garima), “their characteristics, dialogues, gestures, and even mannerisms reflect their petty, circumscribed existences.” Indeed, even in this first act, before the play-within-a-play and its cruel persecution of one of their own begins, the characters reveal themselves as lacking in some way, absolutely ready to spitefully point out each other’s shortcomings. Benare is actually the one who, in introducing to Samant the other players soon to be present, identifies Sukhatme as a poor lawyer, Balu as a perpetual child to his adopted parents the Kashikars, and Ponkshe as insecure. Her tone is more playful than that of the others as they begin to arrive, however. Sukhatme jokes that Ponkshe “looks most unimpressive in the trial. The scientist in the witness-box and all that! No one would believe he has just taken his Inter-Science for the second time. or works as a clerk in the Central Telegraph Office!” (24.) When Balu laughs, Ponkshe cruelly retorts, “Don’t you laugh, Rodke! I didn’t get my education on Mrs. Kashikar’s charity! I may have failed my Inter-Science, but at least I did it on my own father’s money!” (24.) Kashikar also makes sure to talk down to Balu and to treat him like a child, and to rudely and blatantly shut his wife down when he finds her annoying. Additionally, when Benare makes a kind comment about Mr. and Mrs. Kashikar’s behavior towards each other, Karnik cannot help but speculate, without any evidence, “When I for one see such public formalities between husband and wife, I suspect something quite different in private” (28).
As the group prepares to practice the mock trial, they continue to grumble and occasionally behave in a querulous fashion, but there are also moments of levity and camaraderie. They seem very excited to mount their show and to help Samant understand what a trial looks like; it actually appears as if they might be friends, despite the hostile ribbing. However, when the time comes to choose an accused for the fake trial they’re about to embark upon, the veritable gleam in their collective eye when they light upon Benare (who is in the bathroom) foreshadows what is to come. Karnik and Ponkshe mysteriously talk about something they “know” about Benare, and they all huddle together to choose the cause of “social significance” that will be something specifically intended to castigate an unmarried woman of a certain age. Tendulkar has hinted at why they are doing this and will continue to provide more insight into this as the play progresses, but Anil Singhal sums it up nicely: “Tendulkar projects a vision of the world as an essentially hostile place populated, for the most part, by hypocrites, egoists, absolutists and hard-hearted realists. In delineating his male characters, Tendulkar has explored their psyches to the extent of revealing the hidden sense of failure pervading their lives—the inefficiency of Sukhatme as a lawyer, the childlessness of Mr. Kashikar, the vain attempts of Karnik to be a successful actor, the non-fulfilment of Ponkshe’s dream to become a scientist and the inability of Rokde to attain an independent adult existence…It is not out of genuine love for drama but out of a sheer sense of their personal failures in life that they have turned to theatre activity. Therefore, to expect them to be refined, truthful, and generous is perhaps crying for the moon.”
As for Benare, though she will soon falter and break down under the duress of the trial, in Act I, she exhibits many of her strengths and the characteristics that make her a target for the patriarchy. She is vivacious and silly, delighting in life, which she calls “wonderful” (17); she says to Sukhatme, “We should laugh, we should play, we should sing. If we can and if they’ll let us, we should dance too!” (23). She expresses her delight in teaching and has no shame in declaring herself an excellent teacher. She plays tricks on her fellow players, tells a story, sings a song, and generally seems to live out her assertion that “Every moment, every bit of [life] is precious” (24).
On the other hand, though Benare’s enthusiasm and flirtatious, charming demeanor take precedence, careful observers will note that there are apparently some issues below the surface. When talking to Samant about teaching, she says frankly and unsolicited that she likes children better than adults because “they don’t have that blind pride of thinking they know everything. There’s no nonsense stuffed in their heads. They don’t scratch you till you bleed, then run away like cowards” (20). Moments later, when extolling her merits as a teacher, she adds, as if to herself, that it’s absurd there is an “enquiry” against her and a “bit of scandal” (21) even though her will, her wishes, and her life are her own, and her behavior has nothing to do with teaching. And later, when Damle is mentioned, Benare clams up and tries to talk to Ponkshe. All of these are indications that something is going on with Benare—something that the others will gleefully mock and exploit for their own sadistic pleasure.
