Summary
The mood in the room is tense and somber as Kashikar asks Benare if she is guilty of the crime. The rest of the group casually talks about what kind of pan they want to eat. Sukhatme asks why Benare is so serious, and she laughs awkwardly that she isn’t afraid of a trial like this.
Samant does not know what infanticide means; when they tell him, he is shocked and says a woman in their village did that a couple of years ago. Kashikar muses that this is a crime of “great social significance,” (41) which is why he chose it. He calls for his gavel and his earpick.
Sukhatme takes his position as lawyer and quibbles with Kashikar on how many seconds they need to spit out their pan. Benare rolls her eyes and Samant wonders aloud if court is really like this. After the pan-spitting incident, Mrs. Kashikar talks knowingly to Samant about how you need the judge’s permission for everything. Kashikar commands her to be silent here, saying that apparently, she cannot be silent here or at home.
Kashikar turns back to Benare and asks if she is guilty of the charge; she asks if he would admit to it. She scorns the accusation they chose for her and says she’d prefer something different. She uses a mocking tone to pretend that she is being accused of snatching property. Kashikar bangs his gavel, Mrs. Kashikar tells her to be quiet, and Samant glows and says she is very good up there.
Finally, Kashikar issues her an official reprimand. In response, she stands and issues him some pan, at which Karnik groans that she is not taking this seriously. Benare returns to the witness stand and says she is not guilty and could not even kill a cockroach. Kashikar has Balu get the book for the oath-taking.
Sukhatme stands for the prosecution’s speech and begins to intone about the sacredness of motherhood. Benare scoffs and asks how he would know. Kashikar gives her another reprimand. Sukhatme continues, saying motherhood is noble and “woman is the mother of mankind” and we must “worship her perpetually” (45). As Kashikar adds a Sanskrit proverb and Mrs. Kashikar enthusiastically adds one as well, Benare says this is ridiculous and gives herself a reprimand.
Sukhatme presses on and asks rhetorically what responsible citizens should say if infanticide happens: there could be no “baser or more devilish thing on earth” (46). Balu brings the book over to Benare, who smiles at him and tries to get him to look at her; he angrily refuses.
Sukhatme announces that a world-famous scientist, Mr. Gopai Ponkshe, is his first witness. Ponkshe swears on the Oxford English Dictionary, and Benare laughs. Mrs. Kashikar urges Samant to pay attention to the examination. Sukhatme asks Ponkshe for his name, whether he knows the accused, and what her profession is. He says she is a schoolmarm, and she sticks her tongue out.
Sukhatme asks Ponkshe about his “view of the moral conduct of the accused” and if it is normal for unmarried women (47). Benare asks how he’d know; Ponkshe ignores her and says it is different, for it is “too much” (47). She “runs after men too much” (47). As Benare makes fun of this, Ponkshe leaves the stand and talks to Karnik, leading Sukhatme to say bitterly that no one is paying attention.
Ponkshe returns to the witness stand and Sukhatme asks him if the accused has a particularly close relationship with a married or unmarried man. Benare interrupts and says that she does: with the judge, and the witness, and the prosecution, and the others here. Ponkshe sighs that there seems to be no point continuing, as people aren’t serious and Karnik is outside. Benare says she will take a stroll through the village. Mrs. Kashikar protests this.
The trial goes on, though, and Ponkshe gets back in the witness-box. When Sukhatme asks about the prisoner’s behavior, he says sometimes she acts like she is “off her head” and there is “no sense at all in her actions” (49). For example, she once tried to arrange a marriage for him.
Sukhatme now calls Karnik, the great actor, to the stand and has him take the oath. Karnik is very theatrical and pretentious, but he answers Sukhatme’s questions about the plays he works on. He asks if Karnik can provide the definition of a mother, and Karnik says it is one who gives birth. He expounds on his thought and Kashikar changes the subject to what he thinks of the prisoner’s conduct. When asked if he means real life or the trial, Sukhatme says real life. Kashikar instead focuses on the trial and Sukhatme, with sudden fervor, asks him if he has ever seen the accused in a compromising position. Karnik replies in the negative. Benare is tense. Karnik adds that Balu has; Sukhatme dismisses him and calls Rodke to the stand.
Analysis
For most of the first part of Act II, Benare maintains a modicum of power, ridiculing the whole premise of the trial, refusing to play along, and watching and laughing at the others’ varying attention and complicity. The debate over the pan is absurd, they have to use a dictionary for the oath, and characters wander in and out at will. Even when some of the “witnesses” begin to say things about Benare that are not very flattering, such as “she runs after men too much” (Ponkshe, 47), she still seems to hold the upper hand and laughs their comments away in a morally superior fashion.
Yet by the end of the act, it becomes clear that something more insidious is afoot. Though Karnik bloviates and distracts throughout his first testimony, when asked if he has an opinion about the “moral conduct of the accused” (51), Tendulkar notes that “Benare’s expression is tense” (51). Karnik then follows up and says that Rodke has seen Benare in a “compromising situation” (51); this is the moment when things start to change indelibly.
An indication of the shift and of the general tenor of the trial is the frequent reprimanding of Benare. Kashikar says to her, “the accused is not supposed to interrupt the court” (42); that, when she speaks, “the dignity of the court must be preserved at all costs” (43); that “for abrogating the authority of counsel, and for obstructing the due process of the law, a reprimand is here issued to you” (44); that “for obstructing the work of the court, a second reprimand is hereby issued to you” (45); that she should “exercise self-control. Don’t forget the value of self-control” (47). Additionally, Sukhatme tells her she is “committing contempt of court” (47). Critics Dr. Ashok P. Khairnar and Dinish B. Deore write of this, “When Miss Leela Benare does not have the required seriousness during the rehearsal session, Mr. Kashikar reminds Miss Leela Benare that the rehearsal will fail if she does not have the proper attitude. It seems that only she will be held responsible for the failure. On the other hand, all the male characters’ casual attitudes seem acceptable. There is no group responsibility. Indirectly, it is obligatory on the part of Miss Leela Benare to be serious in the rehearsal. Being a male, Mr. Kashikar does not use his power against any other male counterpart, rather uses against Benare.”
This double standard is reflected in the title of the play, which increasingly comes to appear as less of a nod to the courtroom structure of the play and more of an accurate reflection of patriarchal society’s desire to silence women. S. Suma notes, “Even the comic relief provided by the pan-spitting contest helps [Benare] regain her composure only for a brief while, as this short respite she gains, is not to last long. As the mock trial is resumed, Benare increasingly seeks shelter in her self-imposed silence…all her attempts at protest are callously drowned in Kashikar the mock judge’s imposition: Silence! In such a helpless, hostile situation, Benare has no other choice but to remain silent, as no language can come to her rescue.”
Benare is not the only woman to be censured thusly: Kashikar is more than happy to silence his own wife when she behaves in a manner he finds too assertive, individualistic, or loud. Most notably, when she is talking to Samant excitedly about the trial, he yells, “Silence must be observed while the court is in session. Can’t shut up at home, can’t shut up here!” (43.) One would think that, as a woman, Mrs. Kashikar would have sympathy for Benare and perhaps ally with her, but the power of the patriarchy means that women are often pitted against each other as they strive for men’s affection and approbation. Mrs. Kashikar has “failed” as a woman because she cannot have children, so she turns her despair at this, along with the concomitant embarrassment, into the savage persecution of another woman who is also deemed to be a “failure” at behaving as men want her to.
