Garam Roti: Durga Venkatesan’s evocative performance investigates patriarchy and invisible female labour in the kitchen
A theatrical and sound performance, ‘Garam Roti’ is set to take the stage at Mumbai’s Prithvi Theatre on December 4, as part of Thespo 26
By Reema Gowalla
Durga Venkatesan is a bit of a provocateur when it comes to her performances. In June 2024, TheatreRoom wrote about her powerful, non-verbal experimental piece, titled Touchy Topic, that saw audience members documenting their memory of ‘bad touch’ on the artist’s body. A writer, director and performer, Durga often steps outside her comfort zone to craft and curate art pieces that centre on themes that are deeply emotional but seldom spoken about. She is curious about personal stories that affect our collective psyche, but fall out of public discourse. Her latest, Garam Roti, is yet another evocative and thought-provoking piece. It uses the humble flatbread, which is a staple in most Indian households, as a symbol to investigate patriarchy and invisible female labour in the kitchen. The narrative is a “confrontation of a lot of fears that surrounds Durga’s identity, ending with roti — the final symbol that opens up the exploration and the library”. Roti is symbolic to the “rants served on kitchen, womanhood and beyond”. After premiering in Bengaluru last month, Durga is now set to perform Garam Roti at Mumbai’s Prithvi Theatre on December 4, as part of Thespo 26.
Said to be placed at the ‘intersection of a theatrical performance and a sound installation’, the performance promises to serve ‘rants and rotis’. Garam Roti is a solo performance, essayed by Durga and her alter ego Lakshmi — one human and the other a ‘sentient’ audio player. The 75-minute performance traverses various themes surrounding women and how they toil in the kitchen all their lives to feed the family. One day when Durga asked herself what epitomises a woman? Pat came the reply: perhaps, it lies in her ability to make garam, garam, gol rotis day in and day out. What starts as a personal reflection on the matter, culminates in an exercise of listening and recording voices of women from different walks of life. The play ditches linearity to weave fiction into non-fiction, underpinned by a library of rants and conversations.
The Garam Roti recording team includes Saran Vashist, Nikhil Bansal, Pragya Jha, Vaidesha Lobiyal and Meghna Manglani, among others. Nikhil is also the production head, with Chaitali Das as the production manager. Devika Saxena has handled set, sound and publicity design, with Surya Saathi as the light designer and Sahitya Rajagopal in charge of sound design. Artistic consultation and mentoring has been provided by Mohammed Ellyas Lehry. The project was developed at Bengaluru’s Rangamadu, in collaboration with Namkampani.
Ahead of the show at Prithvi, Durga indulged in a candid chat with TheatreRoom, giving insights into the conversations she had with various women; why it’s considered so important for every girl to learn to make rotis from an early age; what is tells of the deep-seated patriarchal norms in society, and more. Excerpts:
Q. Garam Roti is said to be offering ‘rants and rotis’. Where did it all begin?
A. In Touchy Topic, I was recording memories. This time, I’m serving rants. My journey with this project began some time last year when I was exploring Touchy Topic. I always wanted to work on a piece surrounding women and domestic work, and I was drawn toward the symbol of fire. One thing led to the other, I started reading up on mythologies, and eventually decided to focus on the kitchen space, where I have witnessed and experienced the omnipresence of women across generations and cultures. As I started exploring the idea further, I found roti as the most basic and identifiable staple in a kitchen. And that’s when I decided on using it as the starting point of a conversation around how women feel in the kitchen. Another prompt here is that I myself don’t know how to make rotis. I never knew how to do it. I don’t know if that has an underlying feeling to it or is it just that you don’t know how to make a roti. Generally, if you are a girl or a woman, you are often asked, “Oh, you don’t know cooking?” There’s always a sense of disapproval attached to it or seen as a shortcoming if you haven’t yet learned the ropes of running the kitchen.
From January 2024, I started speaking with different women over the phone. These were mostly women whom I knew, as well as their friends and acquaintances. After creating a bank of about 9–10 recordings, I realised that these stories were complete in themselves, not fragments of conversations that I initially thought they would look like. I was trying to find a conclusion to how women feel in the kitchen. But after these conversations, I figured that there’s no conclusion or a singular perspective. It’s just a collection of many truths. There are women who really honour their cooking, while there are others who feel frustrated toiling in the kitchen. So, that’s how these conversations and recordings helped me shape this piece, which is not only a play but also a documentary project. I have tried to develop a library of CDs that contain the recordings of women, and is played during the performance.
Q. How did the idea of creating Lakshmi come up? Tell us about the other props and installations used in the show…
A. Actually, Lakshmi was initially just a tool. As I needed something to run the CDs, I got myself a stereo player. All it was doing was playing the CDs. So, I thought, why not come up with an identity for the CD player? And that’s how the character of Lakshmi was introduced. Since then Lakshmi has really helped me to form my own narrative, because now it’s no longer just me speaking and playing the recordings of other women’s voices. With Laksmi coming in, there’s also a banter and an action-reaction process going on, through which my own explorations in the performance have become nuanced.
Yes, it’s a solo performance, but there are actually two characters — both played by me. So, if you ask, “Who Lakshmi is?” Well, she’s half of who I am. I have basically split my full name Durgalakshmi into two — Durga and Lakshmi. It could also be a representation of the dilemmas that I have within me. Perhaps, it’s a creative representation of the various conundrums that one may feel internally.
In terms of other installations, during our opening show at Shoonya — Centre for Art and Somatic Practices in Bengaluru, we served rotis with ghee, sugar, and pickle at the end of the performance. Meanwhile, there was also a roti-making station where audience members could come and make their own rotis. Apart from these, we use a miniature kitchen set as a prop on stage.
Q. Thematically, what are the kind of stories audiences can expect to hear in this piece?
A. Each story is very different from the other. We’ve managed to gather about 15 recordings so far. The women that I have interviewed come from different cultural backgrounds, age groups and demographic locations — from Delhi to Bengaluru as well as a small town in Maharashtra, among others. We have an eight-year-old girl speaking, while there’s also a woman in her 70s sharing her views. The perspectives and stories that they have about the kitchen are very different and exclusive. One thing that I’ve realised through these conversations is that until now nobody has ever asked them how they feel working in the kitchen. These narratives explore the labour of making a roti, the emotions involved in this daily task, and beyond.
That said, these conversations are not just about making rotis in the kitchen or how they feel about it. Things also transcends into their personal journeys as women. Many of them are working women. So, it’s also about how they navigate cooking and other kitchen chores along with their professional life. Some have also spoken about their dynamics with their family members, listing alcoholism as a domestic problem and how it disturbs the home environment. Meanwhile, there are also narratives about single mothers. The women have opened up about the difference in raising a girl child and boy child in the same family; how a household operates on the basis of conventional gender division of labour, which is a clear sign of patriarchal society. Additionally, there are insights into division of labour in a nuclear set-up as well as in joint families. What I have found out is that the dynamics may change depending on one’s religion, culture and part of the nation they belong to. All these different aspects of identity, culture and family dynamics influence how or what a woman feels in the kitchen.
Q. Personally, how has this project influenced your craft?
A. As an artist, I’m now inclining more toward pieces that are more self-investigatory; something that does start from a point of the self. Rather than looking outside for inspiration, I am keen on utilising my own body, memories and feelings in crafting and curating a performance. So, yes, Garam Roti does come from a personal space. It emerges from the fact that I don’t know how to make rotis. Having said that, the narrative as well as my performance have been shaped by the recordings of the conversations that I had with various women. Naturally, I am growing as a person, and therefore, my perspective is also growing, which is reflected in the pieces that I am creating. But it is also a creative exploration. I do have certain things to say, but now I’m focusing on how to say them creatively and not just make it a lecture. I want to build an experience around it, so that I immerse you in that space as much as possible to also make you feel certain things and not just put all the limelight on myself and my story.
Catch the upcoming show of Garam Roti at Mumbai’s Prithvi Theatre on December 4 (6pm and 9pm). You can book your tickets here.
