As characters from the pages of the Upanishads come to life on stage, a voice echoes, “Yeh hasratein pyas bujhati hai hamari aur pyasa chodti hai humein, Ye hasratein taakat banti hai hamari aur tadpati hain humein (These desires quench our thirst and leave us thirsty. These desires become our strength and make us suffer).” Desire, says the Rigveda, is “the primal seed and germ of spirit”, a seed whose fruit is forbidden for women. Be it the Puranas or epics like the Ramayana, they echo with warnings of women who are said to have failed in chastity. 

Ulka Mayur, writer and director of Ballad of Desires, takes the same stories and guides you to the other side—where the women talk. “I have taken characters that are marginalised, often overlooked in the larger narrative,” says Mayur. Her protagonists are women from dharti-lok, apsaras from swarg-lok and nag-kanyas from patal-lok. As different as the inhabitants of these three worlds are, the laws their womenfolk have to follow stay pretty much the same. In the play, to be staged at Creative Adda 191, Sakhi is a common friend and confident for all these characters.