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Zameen

Full-Length Play, Drama  /  1w, 4m

  • Cast Size
    Cast Size
    1w, 4m
  • SubGenre
    Subgenre
    Docudrama/History
  • Audience
    Target Audience
    Adult

Details

Summary

In dusty, time-warped Indian villages, the last camels plough the land, last charkhas spin and last handlooms weave. The global ‘outside’ pushes in via Western culture, technology, huge land and agro-chemical contracts and the desire for a ‘number 2’ illegal route abroad.

Zameen (Land) is set in the cotton fields of Punjab, India. Baba, an ageing Sikh cotton farmer, toils away in his fields, struggling against the vagaries of nature and the modern world. His dutiful daughter Chandni dreams of escaping her fate. Her wastrel brother Dhani dreams of ‘Amrika’. When the moneylender Lal’s son Suraj returns from the outside world, Chandni and Dhani reflect on faded lives and aspirations and reach for ‘phoren’ dreams. A final reckoning on Baba’s land draws out truths, forcing the family to the brink of collapse, in a world changing fast and losing its values.

Rooted in Punjabi farming and folk culture, ancestral land and soil, Zameen was written before mass Indian farmer protests against the increasing corporatisation of agriculture, rising farmer suicides and decimation of small farmers. Facing a climate change catastrophe, Zameen captures a world in transition, as nature, tradition and globalisation violently collide around small village lives – lives steeped in a history of toil, struggle – and resilience.

History
Zameen was first produced by Kali Theatre at Contact Theatre, Manchester in April 2008.
Cast Attributes
BABA – a farmer in his late 50s/early 60s
CHANDNI – Baba’s daughter in her mid-20s
DHANI – Baba’s son in his mid-20s
LAL – a village moneylender/local commission agent in his 50s
SURAJ – Lal’s son in his mid-20s
  • Time Period Contemporary

Media

“A very real story, carefully researched on the ground in the Punjab.” — British Theatre Guide

Licensing & Materials

  • Minimum Fee: £55 per performance plus VAT when applicable.

Scripts

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Authors

Satinder Kaur Chohan

Satinder Kaur Chohan is from Southall, West London and completed her BA in English Language and Literature at King’s College London and her MA at Yale University in the US. A journalist and documentary researcher/assistant producer turned playwright, her plays include Zameen ...
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