Children are to be seen and not heard and for them, neglect can hurt as much as abuse, especially in an urban milieu. This was the focal point in BB Entertainment’s production of Maya – intense and captivating to some extent. Staged in Guwahati’s Rabindra Bhawan on January 10 and 11, the play was written and directed by Abinash Sharma.

Productions that take huge pains to create pure verisimilitude – ‘exact’ reproductions of life – have always made me uneasy, because in doing so, they call great attention to the fact that they aren’t real at all. But the production of Maya was so very potent subject-wise, that I forgot about the overtly cluttered set, all gussied up as if straight out of a home décor magazine, and other vertiginous symptoms of an unerring realism.

Director Sarma did try to create an atmosphere wherein lives Maya, daughter of Santanu Barua (Dr Chinmoy Chakroborty) and Puja Barua (Akashitora), both busy corporate players with little time for their only child. For BB Sulakhyana, a class VII student of Sanskriti Gurukul, she actually did conceive the character of Maya with much gusto and did justice to her role. Maya is left under the guidance and close watch of Bai Maa Joshuda, portrayed very well by Purnima Saikia. Apart from Bai Maa and the dolls in her room, Maya interacts with a character — we get familiar later — called Martin(Pranjal Saikia), who drops by at the Baruas once in a while and spends quality time with her, and she fondly refers to the old man as ‘Santa Claus’.

Martin eventually drops by when Maya is all alone in the house. He happens to be the caretaker of the nearby church and it is he who towards the end rescues the young Maya when she tries to end her life, reeling in depression.

In between, the Baruas get in touch with Dr Bhuyan, a psychiatrist, played by Dr Jayanta Das, to discuss the odd lifestyle of their daughter who is always at loggerheads with her parents. Dr Bhuyan also happens to be a close friend of the Baruas, thus making things easier.

In the last scene, we see all the characters culminating in Maya’s room as Martin carries the unconscious Maya straight to her room and then the surprise reunion of Bai Maa and Martin, who were one-time lovers. They had lost a girl child and sought solace in Maya in their own individual way – Bai Maa willing to work as a household help and Martin visiting her occasionally after he saw her near the school one day. There is nothing more to add to the plot, which seemed a bit weak because of the fact that the two-hour-long production moved at an immensely slow pace.

I also have reservations about a few dialogues and scenes which focused the young Maya, like Bai Maa discussing the flaws of her parents in front of the child and the like. Moreover, the reunion of Martin and Bai Maa was given more importance rather than the state of affairs which revolved around Maya towards the end. The dream sequence looked nice and chirpy, but could have sailed well without.

However, it may be mentioned here that every year, countless Indian children are affected by neglect and that seems to be the pivotal plot of the play and that an issue like this is taken up, is more important than the weak technical aspects of the play and the script here at the moment. The very idea of staging a play in these lines is noteworthy.

Two aspects were very clear in the production: firstly, the lack of understanding of child development, where parents who neglect their children often do not know very much about how children grow and develop. They don’t know what is reasonable to expect at different ages, especially seen in the conduct of Maya’s father – Santanu. Instead, they can view natural, age-appropriate behaviour as a deliberate act of disobedience or defiance. They do not understand that child rearing is a very complex task, with lots of responsibilities. Secondly, the parents’ own difficulties, which will mean that they don’t focus on their children enough. Parents may be depressed or have a mental or physical illness, or be addicted to alcohol or drugs for that matter. Their own childhood may have included neglect. They may find it difficult to trust others, or be too dependent themselves to cope with others depending on them.

At this point, let’s all agree that neglect is too important to ignore. Because neglect is a hidden problem, it can easily be ignored. Although its effects may not be as obvious as other forms of child abuse, emotional neglect especially causes serious and lasting damage to children and that aspect was very clearly portrayed in the production. Kudos to BB Sulakhyana, the bright actor and her director Abinash Sharma for being able to bring the fire within the character of Maya in a radiant manner. Make-up was handled tactfully by Ashitabh Barua (Shanku), the able hands of Karunamoy Kakoty and Mukut Choudhury were on lights, while Babul Boro was responsible for the sound. Kabindra Das helped with the music arrangement and Charukamal Hazarika wrote the songs and added tune to it for the first time. Bappa Ahmed was accountable for the dance compositions and choreography.

Going back to the subject of the play, from what I gather, emotional neglect is failing to provide adequately for a child’s emotional and psychological developmental needs (I just hope new age parents are listening). This includes not spending enough time with the child, as seen in the production, or not providing the experiences a child needs for their mind and emotions to develop.

A few dialogues in this regard would have done well for the rippling effect if nothing else, but then there was an overdose of Freud coming from the psychiatrist in Dr Bhuyan. For a non-actor, Dr Jayanta Das was impressive, and for that matter, so was yet another doctor by profession – Chinmoy Chakroborty, born and raised under the culturally-rich Chakroborty clan of Guwahati. Akashitora, with her experience, could have formulated a better approach towards the character and mellowed down on her performance in certain areas.

Finally, let’s not forget that the whole community is responsible for protecting children, and if we want to do something about neglect, it means we must first recognize that neglect is a serious issue — thanks once again to this production for paving the way, and especially to Basanta Barua and Bobby Sharma Barua of BB Entertainment Private Limited, the unique one family production house.

Sattyakee D’com Bhuyan