Credit: Special Arrangement
A city-based multidisciplinary theatre practitioner is staging a solo performance to explore the relationship between caste and food. Called ‘Come eat with me’, it will be performed by Sri Vamsi Matta.
The event focuses on Dalit culture and will be an amalgamation of stories from his personal life, mythology, contemporary Dalit literature, and real-life incidents. Vamsi describes the performance as an “everyday victory of the human spirit in the face of structural injustices”.
“Every time people talk about caste, they only talk about the brutalised body. They talk about the wounded Dalit. If that is not the topic, caste is always a hush-hush conversation. The aim is to change this. Caste impacts everyone, and the performance will shed light on that. It’s about humanising a community,” he says.
Through the performance, he wants the spectator to explore a simple question: What does it mean for everyone to sit and eat together?
“If you look at any Dalit autobiography, food plays an important role. Topics of discrimination, joy, anger, assertion and many more are explored through food. This interested me and when I went looking into my community’s food, there seemed to be a gap. When people migrated from rural areas to cities, they left behind their community identities and practices, because anything would be a call back to their untouchable identities. It’s unfair that culture had to be erased. Which is why now I look at cooking as an act of remembering and encourage others to do the same,” adds the 32-year-old.
He started working on the performance in 2020, and it premiered in 2022. Since then, Vamsi has staged ‘Come eat with me’ over 30 times across India and the US. The 90-minute performance is always followed by a meal, comprising the dishes Vamsi talks about during the monoact.
“Given the current socio-political climate, such conversations are important. What one eats is a personal choice. But people are being lynched for their food choices. To me, the play is a ray of hope that we can all co-exist,” he shares.
In addition to the show, Vamsi is also organising a workshop on the practice of using food to share personal stories.
It is called ‘Popula Dabba’. The four-hour workshop will be interactive and will focus on evoking the connection between food, memory, and identity. Vamsi will explore narrative practices, visual design and theatre.
‘Popula Dabba’, on October 19, 11 am to 4 pm. ‘Come eat with me’, October 20, 6 pm. At Studio 345. For details, look up @srivamsimatta on Instagram.