The Bhutanese refugee crisis started some 27 years ago, but other than a film—Desh Khojdai Janda—the international crisis has rarely found a place in Nepal’s literary imagination. One of the few works of art which does deal exclusively with the crisis, Hariyo Dhunga by poet and short story writer Upendra Subba, therefore, is a rare all-encompassing view of the crisis that focuses on the plights of those who have been left without a home for three long decades.

A dramatisation of that short story, directed by Sunil Pokharel, is currently on stage at Shilpee Theatre. Thematically, the play stays true to the original work—with its representation of characters of all walks of life and its portrayal of the difficult living conditions in the refugee camps. But a play ought to be judged not by the story it tells but by how the play tells its story. With Hariyo Dhunga, the set is reflective of the camp life, and the play is technically sound, but the viewer is left wondering about the authenticity of characters being portrayed on stage. Does a character raging loudly make you rage too, or does it make you wonder why the character is raging at all? In this instance, even though you know there are plenty of instances of rage, Hariyo Dhunga never really hits home in the way that it intends to.

Most of the characters in Hariyo Dhunga make their living crushing pebbles by riverside. The play gains momentum as Nichule (played by Bipin Karki) finds a Hariyo Dhunga, a precious stone. Poor Nichule, a father of three, was once strong and able but now, he can walk only haltingly. Furthermore, he has also lost the power to enunciate; he often stammers or tries to, but without any luck. The precious stone he finds, you would have thought, will portend silver linings to his ominously dark cloud. But it instead comes as a curse in disguise for his family, the unfolding of which plays out on stage.

Hariyo Dhunga starts with a concerted focus on the expressions and body language of the residents of the Bhutanese refugee camps. There are all gloomy, all look forlorn, as if they were robbed of their physical abilities. The opening moments of the play evoke the real context of the crisis; for instance, we are shown the drinking water crisis and the woes of some differently-abled characters, who are struggling in the camps. But from the start to its very end, the characters in Hariyo Dhunga look a tad too sentimental, even maudlin. The actors admittedly have the burden of reflecting a grave situation on to stage, but they seem to evoke a feeling of pity rather than of compassion. That is perhaps why the play, though it holds its own towards the end, fails to set up the right atmosphere in its buildup. Which is why, though Hariyo Dhunga is based on a solid plotline, it never is able to shrug off the feeling of being somewhat stilted.

But more damningly, a new phenomenon has plagued local theatre scene of late—that of infusing a sequence or two so as to entertain Kathmandu’s audiences easily, which many in the theatre circle refer to as a ‘Khatiya Joke’. Khatiya jokes may come at any point in the narrative, and it does not contribute to the overall narrative. It just has to entertain the audience, who it is assumed might laugh at virtually anything. It seems that even the veteran director Pokharel is not immune to this phenomenon. For instance, towards the middle of the play, when Nichule is crushing pebbles, wearing his usual tattered clothes, a woman sitting alongside him says his genitals are being exposed. And another character retorts that his genitals need to be locked with a key. It’s up to you whether you find sequences like this funny or plain and avoidably absurd. 

All in all, Hariyo Dhunga might be a cut better than the recent surge of plays being staged in Kathmandu, but it is not immune to shortcomings. If only the director could have elicited more softened performances from his actors, the play could have achieved what it wants to—to treat this grave subject without succumbing to easy sentimentality.