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www.galaxyimrj.com Galaxy: An International Multidisciplinary Research Journal ISSN: 2278-9529

Gang-Rape and Apathy towards Rape Victim: An Analysis of Manjula

Padmanabhan’s Lights Out
Tapashree Ghosh
Assistant professor,
Department of English,
Dhruba Chand Halder College.

Abstract:

The paper critically analyzes Manjula Padmanabhan’s play “Lights Out”to focus on
the trauma of gang rape and the apathy of people towards rape victims. The issue is topical
and has relevance in contemporary India as the brutal incident of Delhi rape case is still fresh
in our memory. Jyoti Singh’s brutal gang rape and torture by her rapists who ripped out her
intestines lead to her death. The incident shocked the entire nation and left several
unanswered questions. In Manjula Padmanabhan’s play “Lights Out” the rape victim
desperately cries out for help but her cries are left unanswered as the middle class characters
present on stage put forward several reasons to defer action against the perpetrators of the
crime. The paper critically studies the excuses put forward by the characters that range from
branding the victim as a whore to even using the discourse of the Nation to defer action to an
indefinite future. It is this mind set of non involvement in criminal cases especially cases
related to sexual violence on women that has made violence against women so rampant in our
country.

Keywords: gang-rape, apathy, non-action.

The text Body Blows: Women, Violence and Survival begin with an introductory
essay by C.S. Laskmi titled “And Kannagi Plucked out a Breast” wherein she introduces
the theme of the text in a very interesting and thought provoking manner. Fairy Tales told
to children contain stories of abducted women, slain demonesses and children go off to
sleep after listening to accounts of gender violence. C. S. Lakshmi reasons that such
peaceful sleep was possible because “one had assimilated violence as a part of being a
woman. Draupadi is humiliated in the Kaurava court, Sita enters the fire to prove her
chastity and Ahalya hardens into stone, awaiting deliverance at the touch of the foot of
Rama. The child listens, thinking that this is what it is to be a woman; the attacks on her
body seem an inevitable aspect of being female” (vii). Manjula Padmanabhan’s play
“Lights Out” also focuses on body blows that have become an inevitable part of being a
woman.

The play “Lights Out” by Manjula Padmanabhan focuses on gang rape and
indifference and intolerance of people to crimes like gang rape. Respected citizens of
middle class families choose to stay away from heinous crimes against woman such as
gang rape as they do not want to be involved in a police case. The title is of play is
significant. ‘Lights Out’ suggests darkness and darkness may connote ignorance,
indifference, fear, violence, lack of vision and lack of hope. It is doubly significant as any

Vol. 6, Issue I 058 January 2017

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theatre performance begins only when all lights in the auditorium are switched off thereby
creating a semblance of reality on stage. Through the play Manjula Padmanabhan wants to
put ‘lights on’ (focus) on this serious issue of rape.

The play opens and we see Leela is deeply perturbed and shocked by the scene of
violence that takes place every night in the opposite building where women are gang
raped. Her husband is indifferent to the incident as it does not concern them directly. He
does not want to involve himself in the matter. But, Leela insists on calling the police as
she is afraid of the incident. It is affecting her peace of mind. She feels afraid and
vulnerable to violence while her husband shoves off the incident as “minor little offense”
(BB 86) and therefore not “worth” (BB 86) any action.

As the conversation between the so called respectable and decent couple proceeds
we are told that Bhaskar had been watching the incident from the comfort of his home
perhaps even enjoying the spectacle of rape. Leela does not want to watch it. The sounds
are enough to trouble her. She is worried of the “dirty, ugly sounds” as it pollutes the nice,
clean air of her household:

But their sounds come inside, inside my nice clean house and I can’t push them
out!..If only they didn’t make such a racket, I wouldn’t mind so much!...Why do they
have to do it here? Why can’t they go somewhere else? (BB 88)

It is a pity that the cries of a rape victim for help and her gagged painful screams
are only “dirty, ugly sounds” that were better silenced for Leela. In spite of being a woman
she is so rude and insensitive though she time and again posits herself as sensitive. She is
only bothered about her children, her family and herself. However, if this lady comes
across as self centred and indifferent then so are the audiences in the theatre and readers of
this play as we all try to stay away such getting involved in such crimes in your daily lives.

Bhaskar’s friend Mohan arrives for dinner. He has come to watch the rape as if it is a cricket
match:

MOHAN: Oh- but I insisted!

BHASKAR: He wanted to see it-

LEELA: You wanted to see it!

MOHAN:( Unrepentant) Sure! Why not?

LEELA: (She’s not amused) But why! Why see such awful things, unless you must!

MOHAN: Well, I was- curious.

LEELA: About such things! (BB 94)

Rape scenes are often included in movies and television serials as they provide
voyeuristic pleasure to viewers especially male viewers. To the male gaze a rape scene is a

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spectacle just as the way a woman’s body is seen as a spectacle to be gazed at in cinema.
In Laura Mulvey’s “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” Mulvey, borrowing from
Freudian and Lacaninan psychoanalysis, “argues that pleasure in a world ordered by
sexual imbalance is split between the active male and the passive female; the male gaze
projects its fantasy on to the female figure, while in their exhibitionist role women are
both displayed and, as it were, coded to connote ‘to-be- looked- at- ness’” (Waugh 510).

In “Resistance through Theatrical Communication: Two Women’s Texts and A

Critique of Violence” Sanchayita Paul Chakraborty writes, “The play focuses on the
response of the male gaze to the spectacle of the gang-rape in the space of urbanity. The
male gaze here does not only participate in the voyeuristic enjoyment of the event of rape
but it also indulges in the brutal objectification of the female body as well as a process of
justification which remains the central tenent of the drama. In structure and thematic
exploration, the text is unfolding the contrapuntal formation of this male gaze that
functions on multilayered structural shelter...What is ironic in the play that one of the
major male protagonists, Mohan only comes to look at the gang-rape of the woman is
quite evident. What changes his role from an eye-witness to a scopophilic gazer is his
constant formation of various explanations to evade the active involvement. (5)

Leela does not want to address the issue herself. She wants police to come and
clear off the crime as it is a case of law and order. All conversations revolve around the
incident as Bhaskar, Leela and Mohan analyse the nature of sounds emitted by the victims
whether they are cries of pain or sexual pleasure. The so called decent middle class family
of Leela and Bhaskar are also aiding and abetting the crime as every night they keep their
lights switched off obediently following the silent orders of the assailants fearing that if
they do not obey the same their window panes will also be smashed just like that of one of
their neighbours who had dared to interfere by keeping the light on.

Instead of taking immediate action they cite excuses to delay action including the
possibility of it being a religious ceremony or exorcism. They reason that India being
secular gives its citizens the freedom to practise any religion however crude it might be.
Thus, the discourse of the Nation is also invoked to cover up the incident of rape and
thereby deny it.

It is further significant and unnerving that it is Leela, a middle class educated wife,
who spreads the dinner and transforms the discussion into dinner table gossip. The inmates
of the apartment comfortably relish their dinner in candle light while a woman is sobbing,
screaming and shrieking in need of help.

Leela’s friend Naina joins them in the final act. She too is shocked by the crime
and wants to call the police. But, Bhaskar and Mohan try to convince her that it is not a
case of rape but exorcism. They reason that like gang rape exorcism too may be violent.

Thus, the respectable citizens of the Nation watch the crime and try to tease out
possible causes behind it while the woman bleeds from repeated blows on her bruised
body. Refusing to believe in their reasoning, Naina bursts out in anger. “Three men,

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holding one woman, with her legs pulled apart, while the fourth thrusts his-organ-into her!
What would you call that-a poetry reading?” (BB 116) and states the obvious fact. “Most
forms of rape, especially gang rape, are accompanied by extreme physical violence” (BB
116)

Left with no choice Bhaskar and Mohan agree that it is a case of rape. Defending
their inaction they come up with another brilliant excuse. The woman who is being raped
may be a whore. Being a whore she does not have any sexual, bodily rights and therefore
cannot lose what she initially does not possess:

NAINA: (uncertainly) Rape is...when a woman is forced...to have sex-

MOHAN: (Confidently) And what is a whore?

NAINA: (Unhappily) A whore...

BHASKAR: (Triumphantly) A whore is a woman whose livelihood is sex!

LEELA: (With distaste) A whore is a woman without shame.

NAINA: But-does that mean only decent woman can be raped?

MOHAN: Of course!

BHASKAR: After all, what does a whore have to lose?

NAINA: Why- I mean-

MOHAN: Come on! A whore is not decent, so a whore cannot be raped! (BB 117)

Similar reasons were put forward by the Kauravas to justify the disrobing of
Draupadi in the Mahabharata as she was married to five Pandava brothers. Our epics are
still our contemporary as patriarchal mindset and chauvinist logic have still not become
outdated though we claim ourselves to be global, advanced citizens of postmodern world.
It also pinpoints the terrible living conditions of whores who are often subjected to
violence and rapes but have no legal rights to register their complaints. Treated as
subhuman, human rights are not applicable to these subalterns of the society who sell their
body for their living. To Bhaskar and Mohan a whore is not a woman but a separate
category:

NAINA: By losing their vulnerability to rape, whores lose their right to be women? Is
that what you mean?

MOHAN: Right. Afterall, finally, the difference between men and women is that
women are vulnerable to rape...

BHASKAR: And men are not. (BB 119)

Amidst volley of arguments and counter arguments Naina’s husband enters the
scene and suggests the need for speedy action. He wants to kill the assailants as by daring

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to commit the act in their locality they have challenged their manliness. Once their
manliness has been questioned Bhaskar and Mohan also join the mission to counter attack
the assailants and prove their manliness. The nature of arguments shifts to methods of
killing the assailants and they come up with multiple options ranging from electrocution to
acid and petrol attack. They also plan to take pictures of the crime and sell it to the media
as “authentic pictures of a gang-rape in action” (BB 127) being rare are sure to get media
coverage. In this delay and dilly dallying of action the crime ends and the perpetrators of
the crime leave the site along with the victim leaving behind silence and volley of
unanswered questions thrown at the audience in the theatre hall as their middle class
morality and its serious gaps have been revealed in the play.

The play ends “not with a bang but a whimper” (Eliot, The Hollow Men, ). As
counter action against the rapists are postponed and permanently deferred using facade of
logic and arguments, the play ends in abrupt silence. This silence is of inaction and shame.
The audiences leave the theatre hall silently identifying themselves with the characters
presented on stage. Gender violence is becoming rampant in India because of this attitude
of non involvement. It is a pity that we have forgotten the golden words of wisdom and
values taught to us as children- those who commit crime and those who allow crime to be
committed are equally at fault.

Manjula Padmanabhan silences the voice of the rape victim. We hear her cries and
groans for help. But there is no information cited in the play regarding her identity, status,
appearance and attire. We do not know whether she knew her assailants, whether the same
woman was tortured every night or the rapists picked up different women and tortured
them for sexual pleasure. In absence of such concrete information regarding the
background of the victim, it becomes easy for the characters on stage to cite counter
reasons to defer action. One of the key reasons put forward by the men in the play is that
she may be a whore. By branding her as a whore, Bhaskar and Mohan justify their
inaction. The play ends with the brief message that it is based on a real life incident. This
play was first performed in 1986 by Sol Theatre Company at Prithvi Theatre, Bombay.
The play is still very significant even after thirty years from its first performance. The play
may be re-read in the light of the brutal incident of gang rape of Jyoti Singh, a medical
student who was raped and brutally tortured by her rapists on the night of 16 Dec. 2012 for
daring to stay outdoors at night with a male friend. The rapists tortured her with an iron
rod and ripped out her intestines. It was as if they wanted to teach her a lesson for daring
to transgress laws of patriarchal society by staying outdoors at night with a male friend.
The Delhi Rape Case got a lot of media attention and nationwide protest of people
followed the incident. Media hailed her as ‘Nirbhaya’ (fearless woman) as she struggled in
her death bed but still wanted to get justice. However, the incident also brought forward
the reluctance of eye witnesses to get involved in the matter. The incident inspired Udwin
Leslee to make a documentary based on the incident titled ‘India’s Daughter’.
Unfortunately the documentary was not telecasted in India. However, in this age of
digitisation, it is impossible to prevent spread of information. The documentary is still
available online and can be Google searched. The shocking documentary reveals the

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mindset of the rapists and their defence lawyer who think that Jyoti deserved the
punishment she received as she dared to stay outdoors at night with a man who was not
her relative. This incident of gang rape that took place in Delhi in 2012 and several other
instances of rape in recent times such as the Park Street Rape Case have revealed the
vulnerability of women to violence, inability of the State to ensure protection to women
and apathy of people to get involved in rape cases. Thus, Manjula Padmanabhan’s play
Lights Out is significant. She uses the powerful medium of theatre to focus on the serious
issue of gender violence.

Works Cited:

Body Blows: Women, Violence and Survival. Calcutta: Seagull Books, 2000. Print. This text
is abbreviated as BB in in-text citations.