Absurd play? what is that? .

- Window seat-Udayan Thakkar

- So was the girl really murdered? No, no, no. The author points out that Parwari's eagerness to learn his science; This is an 'absurd' play.

In the mid-seventeenth century, there was buzz about the 'theatre of the absurd': a theater whose story, dialogue and acting seemed illogical, anomalous or absurd. Today we will look at Eugene Ionesco's solo 'The Lesson'. The third bell has rung, everyone settle in your seats.

The door-bell rings. The maid opens the door and sees a twenty-one-year-old girl, in a skirt-blouse, coming to the professor for tuition-guidance.

Girl: I have come at the given time...

Professor: ... you shouldn't have bothered. Actually you had to wait here for a while.. I just... I have a slight.. a little... I'm sorry.. You will do.

The girl is a novice in the village and praises the village. The professor has been living in this village for thirty years.

Prof: I feel like leaving this village and going somewhere else. New Delhi, for instance or even Wankaner.

Cho: Do ​​you like Wankaner sir?

Pro: I can't say for sure. So I have never been to Wankaner.

Cho: But you must have gone to New Delhi?

Pro: If you look at it that way, like Vankaner, a bit.

(In the beginning the professor is shown to be overly cautious and shy, so that the change in his behavior at the end is quite obvious. The professor wants to leave the village and go to towns he has never seen. Perhaps haunted by the village and ready to escape anywhere.)

The professor starts asking questions. Monsoon is one of the three seasons. Two more seasons...'

Cho: Summer and and…

Pro: And.. and.. say.. shi-shi-fox-like name...shi...

Cho: Yes, yes, winter!

Pro: Correct! Correct! Correct! Beautiful! Miss, gorgeous! You sister will prove to be a brilliant student...

The girl says, 'My father really wanted me to do a PhD. But is it possible to do seventeen or fifteen PhDs in such a short time?

(The 'tejasvita' of the girl is such that she doesn't even know the names of the three seasons, and Bapuji wants her to do a PhD in all subjects! We want our saints to achieve what we couldn't. Fifteen-seventeen PhDs? Nowadays doctorates are awarded – did Ionesco know this in advance?)

The professor starts arithmetic tuition. The maid tells him, 'Don't start with arithmetic, you'll get agitated.' The professor doesn't heed the warning.

Pro: One and one - how many?

Cho: One and one - two.

Thus seven plus one equals eight.

Pro: Now let's subtract... if three out of four go, how many will be left?

Cho: Three out of four? And... three out of four?

Pro: Yes a... ie four minus three?

Cho: Three out of four..so...seven?

(Humour is produced. However, the author's intention is different. What is the standard of today's students? Some surveys have revealed that a large number of government school students cannot even read-write in the fifth standard.)

The professor explains the concept of subtraction:

Pro: Suppose you have two noses. I pick one of the two noses like a delicate flower. So how many noses do you have left?

Cho: Sir, not one.

Pro: Miss, understand. I gently pry open one of your ears with my teeth. How many ears are left now?

Cho: Two.

(Professor gets agitated knowing that the girl is offended. What did the example of picking the nose serve? 'You have two flowers in your hand and I will take one'. Why did you ask the example of plucking the ear? 'Out of the two books you have I will take one', one might ask. The author is turning the narrative towards violence.)

Professor starts teaching Linguistics:

Pro: The Maru-Gurjar language, spoken in the Dang region in the thirteenth century, is the mother of all the Vraja languages ​​of today... Other language families include Maharashtrian, Prakrit and Saurashtri Sanskrit, plus Konkani and Singhalese.. in all of which Anuswar is always pronounced from the left nostril... Call them Konkani or Kenyan. It is difficult to distinguish it from a symbolic language like Ajmeri or Achhandas language like Ajmeri or Ardhamagadhi...

Cho: My tooth is very painful sir.

(Here is an excerpt from the professor's lecture, the reading of which kills our wits. I was tormented by the names of minerals produced in Ghana, and you were tormented by the atomic weights of the elements, right? )

The lecture is not over yet.

Pro: 'As yellow as the skin of my little one who lives in Nanking, so yellow are the tender roses of my little one.' Translate this sentence into English.

The girl complains of toothache again. The professor croaks, 'Thirty-two times I'll knock you out... I'll break the skull.' He pinches the girl's wrist.

(The poet-playwright Sitanshu Yashchandra has adapted this French monologue of Ionesco into a purely beautiful Gujarati, from which the quotations originating here have been taken. The adaptation has become Gujarati for sixteen. Grandmother is as yellow as my grandfather who was born in Asia.' .The teacher's terror now transforms the girl's curiosity into jugupsa.)

Professor finds tablets: tablets of Khadi dialect, tablets of modern Vrajabhasha, Bhutia, Maha-Marwari tablets.

Prof: (As one sings) So let's see, sister, say: 'There is nothing to you. Rane kano dosha ro' 'Ch...ro.' ... Knife, knife, knife! (Dances almost madly around the girl. Finally - not really - kills the girl with an imaginary knife.)

So was the girl really murdered? No, no, no. The author points out that Parwari's eagerness to learn his science; This is an 'absurd' play.

The maid comes and gets angry that you did the same to the previous forty nine girls! Both of them cremate the dead body of the girl. There the door-bell rings. The forty-first girl has arrived for 'guidance'. The circle begins anew.