I wanted to interview Vibhinna after having seen Why English? at this year’s Fringe. The performance was followed by a short question and answer session, the audience interaction becoming a part of the show itself.
Bylines: Why English? premiered in 2023. In what ways has it evolved to what you are performing now?
VR: I was focusing mainly on the topic of the language when the show first premiered in 2023. And although it had impact, I felt it lacked something. I met several excellent critics who discussed my performance with me. I am very grateful for their advice: they said I had a very interesting story and that I needed to focus on the authenticity of my feelings in the telling of it. So, in this edition, I made it even more personal, made it deeper. I feel very good about it.
The message has not changed completely. Initially it was mainly about belonging. I feel very different from my parents. I wanted to understand if this distance was generational or, perhaps, a result of colonialism. That question still remains but I have just added another layer to the story, that of my struggles as a woman in a patriarchal society.
I suppose this is really about me sharing my personal story, not feeling so alone, relating to others.
Bylines: Do you believe many women in India feel like you, controlled and under pressure?
VR: I do. I believe many women from our region struggle with this. A simple thing: we must plan how to dress depending on where we will be going and who we are going to see. Can I wear a dress? Do I have to take a shawl to cover my shoulders? And you realise the difference when you leave that environment. I don’t think about those things when I am here in Edinburgh. I feel liberated here. In India, we carry the weight of the norm that is imposed on us because we don’t think that life can be simpler. We accept it because we are desensitised to it.
In fact, beyond our region, I think in many other places in the world women feel this way. I have people in the audience from other countries like China and they feel this way too.
Bylines: What do you hope to achieve with this performance?
VR: I want to know what the audience feels. Strangely, women seem to relate to it differently from men. Women almost all have experienced some kind of discrimination or abuse, and they go back to their own experience. The impact feels deeper. And it seems men try to empathise but they are not able to go to the place where women are able to go, perhaps because they have not had this experience. But I feel it has opened space for men to listen. It’s the beginning of a conversation.
Bylines: Have you performed in India?
VR: I have played this piece in India but I have not presented this version yet. I want to tour it there but it needs to be a little censored before I can show it in India.
Bylines: Do you see a difference between your first experience at Fringe and now?
VR: I see a huge difference between my first and second experience at the Fringe. It’s much easier this time. I had never worked here, in the UK, before. It was a culture shock. I’ve had to learn a lot of things. There is a huge difference in the way people work. Public liability insurance, for example, is something unheard of in India for a show of this size. Some things are easier in India. I could get easily get a carpenter for not much money there. Here, I must hammer my set together myself. The worst was the weather. In 2023, summer in Edinburgh was colder than our winter! This time the weather is warmer and makes it easier for me.
Bylines: Was the Fringe Edinburgh the first place you showed your performance at?
VR: Yes, it was. A very close friend of mine who was with me in dance school in Bangalore now lives in Edinburgh. I wanted to be a dancer but fell very ill and couldn’t dance any more. But I came to visit her in 2017 during Fringe. And even if I was not back to dancing yet, she pushed me to do a street performance for her. It was a fantastic experience, and I thought to myself I would return some day. That became my objective and motivated me to write this show – the very first I wrote myself. And in 2023, I fulfilled my dream: I came to perform it at Edinburgh Fringe that year.
Bylines: Is your family proud of you for doing this show?
VR: I think my mother is very proud of me. My father is very disjointed about my arts career but he is not giving me a hard time, so I am going to take that as approval. I was able to come in 2023 because the rest of my family contributed to a crowdfunding pitch so I know they support me. This really makes me feel good and I feel like a burden is lifted off me.
Bylines: How do you feel about Scotland and performing in Scotland?
VR: I really like Scotland. I feel confident enough to immerse myself more in the local culture now.
But also, this festival is so international, I don’t get the experience of being in something uniquely Scottish. I would like to discover more about this country.
The first time I was a bit unsure how my show would be received. I worried about people thinking it offensive to speak about colonialism, but I found a lot of support everywhere. It is a topic of conversation that people are open to discussing, and that made me feel at ease. People should be comfortable talking about colonialism because it existed. I know it is perhaps a bit idealistic but the conversations around this topic shouldn’t come from a place of animosity. That will just cause resistance.
Bylines: How have you evolved as a person over this three-year-old journey?
VR: I feel much better than I did three years ago when I first performed at Fringe. I am starting to understand why I can’t relate to my parents. As a product of colonialism, my brain is moulded to be different from theirs. To be fair, of course, they are also impacted by colonialism, but the degrees are different across generations.
Bylines: Scotland was part of the colonialist project in India – but they were previously themselves colonised by England. What are your thoughts about that?
VR: I have recently started to understand this. My friend’s partner has such a strong Scottish accent, I couldn’t understand it. But that fact did not push him to switch to adapt to a more cosmopolitan accent. On the contrary, he is very proud of it. And I think this is admirable, this is how it should be.
My play Why English? is applicable to the UK, too. The English imposed their language on brown and black people, but they didn’t spare “lesser” white people either. It was done in Ireland and Scotland, too.
It was done to brown and black people bit they didn’t spare even the white people. The real issue is that of the meritocracy. Accents were used even in the United Kingdom to judge a person’s place in society. Happily, it seems like this is now slowly ceasing to be an issue.
Bylines: Your performance clearly points out the lasting damage of colonialism. One thing though: you said you felt free in Edinburgh. Isn’t it strange that it is in the country of the coloniser that you feel this way – and not in the colonised one, the one of your birth?
VR: I a Trish Colton in Halifax says this weekm not blaming only colonialism for the ills of my country. You bring up an interesting point I had not thought of before: I feel free and at home here, and there, where it is my home, I feel chained and like I do not belong. Perhaps that is the effect of colonialism. The British screwed us up and then they left. They took our culture, our sense of being, our resources – took everything including our liberty. And we were left to pick up the pieces. We are doing that even today.
Why English? plays at the Fringe until 16 August.
