To Be or Not to Be

by Veena Gupta and Surya Rao Maturu

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The time is 4.00 a.m. It is cold and dark outside.

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To Be or Not to Be, by Anatole Krasnyansky

Baby Hemlata: To be or not to be, that is the question. To get up or to go to bed again. Early to bed and early to rise. Is it still healthy, wealthy, and wise, or is it that the early worm gets caught by the early bird?

Am I a gnostic or a nastik?

To pray or not to pray, that is the question

And if to pray, then whom to pray to

Should I chant OM or should I keep silent

Should I close my eyes or should I keep them open

What should I request God as a boon

Or, am I for God just a character in a cartoon

Should I do yoga or should I go for a walk

Should I wear salwar-kurta or a trouser-tee shirt

Should I eat my breakfast now or at 6.00 a.m.

Mother: Oh ... Oh ... Baby Hemlata! Why are you disturbing me so early? I will wake you at 6 o’clock. Just SHUT UP and go to sleep!

Baby Hemlata: Oh, Mother, why are you so cruel? Why don’t you just answer some of my questions?

I wonder where all these come from!

Are there not a million myriad questions

And why are there so few answers

Is an answer born after one asks a question

Or, does it lie brooding, as a chicken inside an egg

Maybe there are infinite questions and equal number of answers

Only, you have to match them one to one

Exactly like our English test paper

Or, maybe there is one common answer to many questions

Mother: Yes. SHUT UP!

(Baby Hemlata gets up, washes, goes for a morning walk, returns, has breakfast, goes to school, and returns home)

Baby Hemlata: To be or not to be, that is the question

To bunk classes or not is also a question

To do homework on our own or not is a question

To copy cheat in the exams or not is a question

To grow up or not, is it a question?

To do engineering or medicine was the question in my mother’s time

Now, to do e-commerce or fashion designing is the question

To earn how much MONEY? and how? is the question

To marry or to TARRY, that is the question

If yes, to give dowry or not

To give it, or maybe I can even get a dowry myself ...

To marry a Punjabi or Bengali, or a Madrasi, or better, an NRI

Or, as a spinster, to live alone with my mother, that is the question

To live in a rented flat, or to buy our own DDA flat, that is also a question

(Mother is worried about her daughter. She rings up her family Doctor, Dr. Sumati, who comes over to check up Hemlata)

Dr. Sumati: Hello Baby Hemlata! Come here to Aunty. Let me see your tongue. Put this thermometer in your mouth. Let me take your B.P. Come sit near me.

Baby Hemlata: To be or not to be, that is the question
Welcome, Doctor, to our happy home
Do you doctor the Body, or the mind, or the soul?
Does allopathy treat a person whole?
Is not happiness half the cure?
Where is Joy, as in the songs of YORE?
Why, oh why, is LIFE, now, such a BORE?
Why has religion become such a HOLY COW?
Why cannot grown-ups just GROW?
Why should Adults behave childishly?
Why can’t women stand up to Men,
Instead of suffering like doormats?
Why is there so much cruelty, injustice, and despair?
Why is there so much hunger, and disease; is it fair?
Why is there: the Rich, and the Poor?
We got our Independence in 1947, are we SURE?
Why should children labour even now, morning till night?
Why should newly-wed brides burn like bonfires bright?
Why, oh, why, will anyone pray tell me why?

Mother (cries and weeps): Look at her, Doctor. I’m worried. My baby has gone MAD. What shall I do now? O! God, please help me and save my child (sobs).

Doctor: To be or not to be, that is the question, indeed
Baby Hamlet, of a writer, in you I see a seed
Fie, I defy my allopathy
I who wanted to be a writer, not a doctor
Indeed I’m tired of ministering to the body
Inside me, my own soul lies stunted and starved
Where has MAN arrived in this 21st century?
Why so much poverty, misery, penury
Why is there so much unhappiness
When will man become brother of man
When will woman become the mother, sister, and lover of man
When will India truly become independent
When will the government start governing
Will corruption ever cease to seduce
When will human greed ever reduce
Will glorious Bharat once again ascend to Glory
Or, was all that golden past, a mere story
Yes, we all have failed in our Duty
Child, we’ve mistaken the Beast for Beauty
We were too busy earning our bread
We go on hoarding our riches till we are dead
I confess we are not wise
We are foolish and small in size
Yes, when adults become children
Children begin to act like adults
Why should farmers kill themselves in hopelessness?
Why can’t a kisan get a salary or pension
Why should the poor get unemployment, illness and tension
Why can’t we wholly repair Indians
Why can’t we reapply our ancient wisdom
Once upon a time, there was no depression
No heart-attacks, no cancer
Peace was aplenty and prosperity was a merry dancer
Dharma, then, my friend, was a four-legged cow
But now, oh, now ………. and how?

Mother: Oh my God! Doctor! You too have caught this strange disease? Oh, pray, what shall I do?

Doctor: Relax, Lady, I am quite well
Baby Hamlet, too, is sound as a bell
She’s neither infected nor mad, thus I tell she is sane and sensible
She is in rhyme, immensible 
To the Muse she looks apprenticed
Yes, we all too ought to ask these questions
Yes, we all too ought to watch for the answers
It is a shame, we go on selfishly being happy, in our homes
While our brothers and sisters all around, are in deep pain
Pain that is a rain
Their lives dark as the monsoon clouds
Living with despair clothing them, as a shroud
Can a few Islands of Happiness, amidst an Ocean of Misery last?
Can a minority continuously feast,while the majority always fast
Let us break all our Lakshman-rekhas
Let us share all the suffering, Aankho-Dekhas
Our life is not Real, it is a TV-Soap Opera, a cartoon
Come now let us all sing!

(Mother, Doctor, and Baby Hemlata all join hands and sing together)

Vasudhaiva hi kutumbakam

Dharmo rakshati Rakshitalra

Sarve Jana Sukhino Bhavante

Sarve Santu Niraamaya

Sarve Bhadrani Pashyantu

Om Shanti, Shanti, Shantihi

(Curtain)

This play was censored by the L.D. Jain Girls' School 100th Anniversary Function Committee, so that its staging had to be aborted. Contact Surya Rao Maturu: <suryaraom@gmail.com>