Following a five-star performance in Wild Rice’s Psychobitch, theatremaker and The Necessary Stage (TNS) Associate Artist Sindhura Kalidas is back this November to wrap up her 2023 with a brand new show: Happy Indian Women.

Written by Sindhura, and co-directed by Sindhura and TNS Resident Playwright Haresh Sharma, Happy Indian Women is a new verbatim theatre production that questions the assumptions made about the diverse South Asian diaspora in Singapore. Based on interviews with 20 women and non-binary people from various backgrounds, Happy Indian Women interweaves text, sound and multimedia to celebrate their honest and tender stories about faith, friendship and family.

Particularly as a double minority in both race and gender, Happy Indian Women recognises all the limitations and expectations placed on an Indian woman in Singapore: They must be independent, but not too independent that they tarnish the family name. They must be strong enough to withstand the constant scrutiny that their bodies, minds and personalities are subject to. They are too dark, too short, too thin, too educated, too loud, too much. Their friends still ask us if they speak ‘Indian’. Or worse, assume they are Indian just because they are a certain shade of brown.

Happy Indian Women has its genesis in a laboratory by TNS entitled An Exploration of “Growing Up Indian”, conducted in late 2022, which had its artist-collaborators exploring interdisciplinary performance styles by using excerpts from “What We Inherit: Growing Up Indian” published by AWARE. The conversations and investigations that surfaced during the workshops inspired Kalidas to develop this new work that would allow South Asian women and non-binary people to be represented in their own words, on their own terms.

“I was keen to explore the experiences of female-identifying South Asians and non-binary individuals in Singapore today. As an Indian woman myself, I’ve come to realise that there’s such a diversity of experience within this community,” says Sindhura. “I think it’s time to take stock of where we are today so that we can present more nuanced portrayals of this community in our narratives.”

Starring Ashie Singh, Grace Kalaiselvi, Siobhan Jane Covey and Siti Sara Hamid, Happy Indian Women also features set design by Akbar Syadiq, lighting design by Emanorwatty Saleh, sound design by Bani Haykal and multimedia design by Nina Chabra. Through this thoughtful, intimate and candid production, Sindhura hopes that the audience will re-evaluate the existing perceptions they have of South Asian communities.

“Hopefully, we all come out being a bit more aware of our blind spots, and a bit more empathetic towards ourselves and each other,” she says.

Happy Indian Women plays from 2nd to 5th November 2023 at the Drama Centre Black Box. An additional show has been added on Sunday 5th November, 8pm. Tickets available from BookMyShow

Production Credits:

Writer: Sindhura Kalidas Directors: Sindhura Kalidas and Haresh Sharma Cast: Ashie Singh, Grace Kalaiselvi, Siobhan Jane Covey, Siti Sara Hamid Sound Artist: Bani Haykal Multimedia Artist: Nina Chabra Set Designer: Syadiq Akbar Lighting Designer: Emanorwatty Saleh