Katradi shines the spotlight on social issues using the arts

Shhh… Listen! by Katradi, to be presented in the city, raises awareness on the importance of wetland conservation

Katradi, an initiative of Wind Dancers Trust (India), based out of Chennai, have taken up the cause of education ever since their inception in 2014. To be precise, they take up those causes that have been overlooked in conventional teaching, says Sangeeta Isvaran, founder of Katradi.

“We believe in kalai mulamma kali which means art through education. All our efforts are towards education in topics that don’t get taught in school such as child sex abuse, reproductive health, gender and caste, and much more. We work with women, children and a wide range of communities,” says Sangeeta.

She adds, “The environment is one of the verticals we work under. Our interest lies in conservation but from a community’s perspective on what ordinary people can do about it. We work with projects to bring awareness on a topic and / or find solutions from within the community on how to address it.”

Shhh… Listen! was commissioned by Bengaluru-based Student Conference for Conservation Science (SCCS), to commemorate their 15th anniversary. Put together by Sangeeta and Thilagavathi Palani, founder of Sri Krishna Kattaikkuttu Khuzu, the play shines the spotlight on the need to protect natural ecosystems.

According to Sangeeta, every year the students of SCCS hold a conference and their theme this year is Wetlands Aren’t Wastelands. “When a lake or body of water starts drying up, it turns into a marshy patch of land. Since it is just a wetland and not a forest with safari-worthy wildlife, nobody has any respect for it. People throw rubbish there, the water gets polluted and eventually, the area is filled up to build flats.”

Shhh… Listen! centres around developing an understanding of the web of life and of the destruction of nature. “We are part of nature, but we tend to think of humans as apart from nature. That is a huge part of our problem,” says Sangeeta.

The protagonists in the play are a couple of frogs living in a marshland, while the villain is a JCB (symbolising development or so-called progress). Yama, the god of truth and balance, also makes an appearance bringing the message on how he is not the harbinger of death, since humans are seeding destruction all around and upsetting the balance of Nature.