Arts & International Affairs: Volume 2, Number 2 | Page 179

When Words Don’t Matter
Puneeta Roy
Puneeta Roy is a media professional working in Film & Television for over 30 years. Her interest in
theatre led her to conducting workshops with young people using theatre as a tool for self-exploration
and transformation. A deep interest in healing drew her towards Expressive Arts Therapy, as a
toolkit ideal for exploring creative self-expression.As Founder Trustee of The Yuva Ekta Foundation,
her vision of Equity & Social Justice translated into the creation of several platforms, through which
under-privileged young people share experiences with their more fortunate peers, and learn from
each other. She sees tremendous potential in young people as agents of positive social change. The
Yuva Ekta Foundation has performed original plays in Glasgow during the Tin Forest International
Youth Festival (2014) and the Home Away Festival (2017), at the invitation of the National Theatre
of Scotland. Puneeta dreams of setting up a Global Youth Citizenship Network that would span
countries across the planet.
It is ����, and we are in the Assembly Theatre at the Edinburgh Fringe
Festival, watching Yael Farber’s play NIRBHAYA, based on the gruesome gang
rape of Jyoti Singh Pandey in a moving bus on a cold December night , New
Delhi ���� - an incident shook the world by its sheer brutality, compelling
both women and men pour out onto the streets demanding justice, urging
everyone to break their silence.
Responding to Jyoti’s brutalization from her home in Johannesburg, Yael
crafted an experience that opened up the larger issues of violation and
exploitation of women in every aspect. Intertwined with the main plot is
the story of five survivors who step forward to share personal stories of their
debasement. Two of them are non-actors, walking onto stage for their first
theatrical sharing.
As the canvas of their stories stretch from the metropolis of India to its
lesser known towns, all the way to Vancouver, Canada, they pierce the hearts
of every audience member.
I am bunched up in my seat feeling the knot in
my stomach get tighter as I watch Sneha Jawale,
a dowry atrocity survivor, relive the horror of a
vicious attack in ����. Her husband had doused her
with kerosene oil and tried to burn her to death, in
her own kitchen! Sneha survived the attack but her
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