Summary
When Sukhatme asks Rodke to enter the witness-box, the young man is very reluctant. He seems miserable, and Benare laughs at him. Finally, Rodke assents and takes his place. Ponkshe whispers to Karnik and asks what Rodke saw; Karnik shrugs and says he was joking, remarking it is just a game.
Sukhatme addresses Mr. Rodke, as he calls him, and asks him to expand upon what Karnik said. Mrs. Kashikar urges him on and tells him to seize this big chance. Rodke is disturbed and reluctant as Sukhatme presses him. He can barely speak as Benare laughs and Mrs. Kashikar chides him. When Benare chants ABCs, he snarls at her to stop. Sukhatme is about to abandon the whole thing when finally Rodke speaks up.
Rodke says hesitatingly that he went to Professor Damle’s house some time ago. Benare is now tense. Rodke says she was there, identifying Benare. Samant wonders aloud if this is true or for the trial. Sukhatme, in a “deep, cruel voice” (53), asks what he saw there. Kashikar speaks up and asks if this is getting a little too personal; Sukhatme shoos this idea away. Benare protests against using her personal life for no reason, but Sukhatme tells her not to spoil the fun of this game.
Rodke says, with some pushing, that he saw the two of them sitting close together. Sukhatme is disappointed that this is all he saw. Rodke seems crushed, and Benare mocks him. He asks why, then, she looked so surprised when she saw him and why Damle made him leave; she laughs that he is just sad that Damle snubbed him.
Sukhatme asks the record to show that Benare’s behavior was suspicious. She is indignant and asks why. She says she will give the name and address of any man with whom she has sat alone. Sukhatme seizes on this and asks that it be used as evidence. Benare gestures to Samant and says to add his name too. Samant is visibly confused and states that they just talked about magic shows and hypnotism.
Kashikar is unsure if all this is within their jurisdiction, but Ponkshe and Karnik urge him to keep going with it. Samant is agitated that his hypnotism comment is being misinterpreted. Mrs. Kashikar smiles that this whole affair is shaping up nicely. Sukhatme asks Rodke to step down now and asks Samant to come forward.
Samant is nervous, but Mrs. Kashikar presses him onward. He puts his hand on the dictionary and awkwardly swears, stumbling over the “truth” and mumbling he does not want to sin by lying.
In the box, Samant answers Sukhatme’s question of whether or not he knows Benare; he says that he does and that she is a very nice lady. Sukhatme wonders aloud if his opinion is reliable. He then presses onward and states that Benare was alone with Professor Damle in his room, adding that after Rodke saw them and left, Samant arrived.
At this, Samant is confused; he says his village is far away from Bombay and he does not know Damle at all. Sukhatme tells him this is just for the trial and to run with it, as the crime is imaginary. Samant is unsure but goes along with it. He says yes, he went there, and hesitatingly says that he reached the door and it was locked. Then, he rang the bell and Damle answered it. He gathers confidence and says Damle asked who he was in a stern voice. Ponkshe and Karnik are tickled, as this actually sounds like Damle.
Samant continues with his falsehoods, relating how he showed up there to arrange a lecture for Damle in his village, so he stood at the door for a time and heard someone crying inside. It was a woman, and she was crying softly and secretively. He then heard some words from the woman. Mrs. Kashikar is excited and asks who it was. Samant says that only Sukhatme may ask.
When Sukhatme does ask, Samant relays that Benare implored Damle not to leave her in this condition because she had nowhere to go. Benare is visibly tenser. Samant says Damle replied that he had sympathy for her but could do nothing and had to protect his reputation. She scoffed at that and called him heartless. She then added that she would have to take her life if he left her, but it would be two lives.
Benare bursts out that this is enough and this is all a complete lie. Kashikar yells for order and the others are gleeful. Karnik dismisses her claim that it is a lie by saying at least it’s an effective one. Benare continues to protest angrily but Sukhatme urges Samant on. Mrs. Kashikar asks “dear” Benare why, if her conscience is clean, she is in such a rage. Benare protests that they’ve all ganged up on her.
Sukhatme wants Samant to add more, but he stumbles, looking through the dictionary for help, so Sukhatme tells Kashikar to put all this in the statement. Her eyes brimming with tears, Benare growls at them to put it all down. She leaves and goes into the wings.
Silence prevails for a moment. Kashikar finds the whole thing exciting. Sukhatme agrees and tells him it is for thoughtful people like them to “consider these matters seriously and responsibly” (62). They must take action as well and wonder what the actual thing that happened was. Sukhatme suggests that he knows the answer to the mystery, and all the others ask what it is.
Benare comes out of the inner room and stands in the doorway. They do not see her as Sukhatme announces that it is clear Benare and Damle are having an affair. Benare comes in, picks up her purse, and tries to leave through the door. It is locked and she cannot get out. Samant tries to help her, explaining unhelpfully how it gets stuck and she pulled it the wrong way.
Kashikar states that under these circumstances it is best the trial continues. With gleaming eyes, Sukhatme calls Benare herself to the witness-box.
Analysis
Balu Rodke’s time in the witness-box, followed by that of Samant, quickly turns the tide for Benare. No longer able to freely joke or defend herself, she further lapses into silence, sometimes accompanied by tears. At one point, she tries to leave but encounters a locked door, and this, combined with the overwhelming nature of the peer pressure and other manipulative psychological techniques (such as people telling her the trial is fake and not to make a big deal out of it), she is pushed back into her defensive and diminished position.
Rodke’s statement is important because it brings in Damle and the suggestion that something is going on between him and Benare. Of course, what Balu saw is not altogether that damning, but it is enough to get Benare’s persecutors going. Perhaps the most tragic moment is when Samant is called to the stand and goes along with the mock trial to the extent that he fabricates “evidence” against Benare that is rolled into the supposedly factual evidence already given. Samant is not a cruel person as the others are, but he is used here as a cautionary tale about how easy it is to be swept up into bullying and other deleterious behaviors if other people are doing them.
In this section, Tendulkar is very savvy about demonstrating how gleeful his characters are to tear apart one of their own; given what we know about their shortcomings, this reflects both their sensitivities and their character flaws. Mrs. Kashikar delights in the lies of Samant, smiling that “the whole affair’s warming up nicely” (55) and that Samant “is giving his evidence so well!” (58). Samant warms to his role, as does the immature Balu, who, as ever, seems to want to please. Kashikar at first expresses some consternation that the trial isn’t proceeding in a professional enough manner, but then he abandons himself to the great fun of it. He says “it’s all become quite unexpectedly enjoyable—the whole fabric of society is being soiled these days” (62). Sukhatme speaks in a “deep, cruel voice” (53) as he extracts damning information about Benare from Balu. Both he and Ponkshe condemn Benare and others for spoiling “the game” (55), as they are having great fun. Overall, then, everyone is coming together in the persecution of Benare and enjoying every moment of it.
The frustrating thing about the play, especially for modern viewers/readers, is how slight the accusations are against Benare—how petty, how mired in patriarchal bias, how utterly indicative of society’s desire to crush a woman who dares to live her life as she sees fit and to mold her into a well-behaved cipher. For example, Rodke’s evidence against Benare is that she was “sitting there—in that room” (54) with Damle—that is it, nothing more, and yet it is perceived to be a tremendous taboo. Sukhatme, unsurprisingly, labels this “suspicious” (54). Earlier, Ponkshe said, when asked to “describe [his] view of the moral conduct of the accused…[and] on the whole is it like that of a normal unmarried woman” (47), Ponkshe replies Benare was “off her head” (49), a “bit too much,” (47) and that she “runs after men too much” (47). These, of course, are mere opinions and say nothing about Benare’s connection to the crime she is supposedly accused of. Though we know this is not a real trial, these absurd derelictions of anything close to appropriate due process and courtroom proceedings are still maddening.
