Language: English

Duration: 75-80 min

Playwright: Rabindranath Tagore. English Translation by William Radice

Directors: Minti Jain & Venkatesh S

The play LAND OF CARDS (Tāser Desh), an English translation of Rabindranath Tagore’s Tāser Desh by William Radice is a call to freedom and a full realisation of what it means to be alive to our feelings, thoughts and human desires.

 

A Princess, discontent with her luxury and lack of a definite purpose, pines to explore the world to free herself from the nagging boredom of her palace and create an identity of her own. She and her friend set out beyond the bounds of the palace and  unexpectedly end up ship wrecked in a strange fantasy kingdom where people dressed up as cards live by rules, rigid inflexible customs and tiresome traditions. However the kingdom suddenly becomes unsettled upon the arrival of the Princess and starts to slip into chaos with everyone giving into their desires. The people in the card kingdom now begin to realise what it means to be human, the joy of giving into desires and breaking free from chains of unfair traditions.

As the nuances of the story unfold in front of you, one finds that Tagore’s Taser Desh written originally during India's freedom struggle is timeless in its call to freedom in many realms.