Jiundo Akash (The Living Sky), a solo act performance by Anil Subha, which depicts the coming-of-age story of a transgender woman is coming back on stage from February 23 at the Sarwanam Theatre, Kalikaisthan.

Written by Chandra Prasad Pandey and directed by RK Roshan Mehta, the play was first staged in Charikot, Dolakha at a theatre festival on June 11, 2016. The play then had a successful run at Sarwanaman theatre in July of last year.  Jiundo Akash is also one of the official selections from Nepal in the upcoming 8th International Olympic Theatre Festival, which is being organised by the National School of Drama, New Delhi, in March.

Chandra Prakash Pandey, the writer of the hour-long play, claimed that this was one of the first plays to bring out the issues of the transgender community of Nepal, “I was unaware of the plight of the transgender community until I started researching for the play,” Pandey said to the Post, “Mehta [the director] encouraged me to write a play based on the issue because he had felt that the Nepali theatre was not responding to the LGBT community’s fight for recognition and dignity.” The play follows the childhood of a boy who slowly realises that he is, in fact, a male only by accident. In Pandey’s words, the play attempts to show the internal and external struggle of a transgender person to find acceptance in society.

The play, when staged in Dolakha, was enacted by the director himself, but Mehta felt that he needed to direct somebody else in order to bring out the nuances of the story, and shared that with each staging the play has received greater depth.

The play will be staged everyday from 23 February to March 3, except for Thursdays.