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What is the climax of the play "Silence! The Court is in Session" by Vijay Tendulkar?
Quick answer:
The climax of "Silence! The Court is in Session" occurs when Leela Benare delivers a powerful monologue exposing the hypocrisy and cruelty of the male-dominated society. This moment reveals her inner turmoil and societal oppression. Additionally, the final judgement declaring Benare 'public enemy number one' and condemning her unborn child underscores the brutal silencing of her voice by patriarchal institutions.
Vijay Tendulkar's play is a social satire on middle-class society. A wandering theatre group surfaces in a quiet village and decides to set up a mock trial. Things take a sinister turn when the actors drag the feisty school teacher Leela Benare into court for her sexual affairs out of wedlock.
In the climax, Benare delivers a brilliant monologue that exposes the hypocrisy of the male chauvinist. She narrates her story of suppression and loneliness, her dilemma of freedom and bondage, and her tale of a love-hate relationship with life. Leela Benare’s soliloquy of self-defense is an expression of her inner turbulence. Tendulkar decides to leave the audience in a state of suspense. Does Leela deliver the soliloquy or does the scene take place in her mind? During the court proceedings, the judge's cry of "silence" drowns her protests on several occasions.
The irony is that the responsibility of...
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her affair with the Professor solely belongs to her, and he goes scot-free. In a hostile world, she fights a losing battle for survival. A patriarchal order compels an educated and self-reliant woman to conform to obsolete social norms.
Unable to bear the disgrace, Leela tries to flee the theatre, to find its exit locked. She falls prey to the cruelty of a sexually frustrated moral brigade.
References
The climax of Tendulkar's play comes with the final judgement that Miss Benare is 'public enemy number one' and that the child in her womb must be destroyed. Benare is thunderstruck at the traumatic consequences of the game which turns into a planned hunt. Patriarchy has finally silenced her. "Silence! the Court is in Session!" is a play about silencing the woman's voice and this is successfully attained through the court which itself is one of the strongest of patriarchal institutions. The apparently innocent nursery rhyme that ends the play has been much misinterpreted by critics as a ploy to lighten the burden of the extremely gruesome atmosphere of the play. But on close reading it can easily be seen as an allegorical commentary on the gruesome nature of patriarchal society. The 'sparrow', the most diminutive of birds, is too weak to resist the onslaughts of the big brother, 'crow' who actually has stolen her nest, and who presents a careless non-chalance about the theft. The nest is of course the symbol of the much-sought-after home of the woman, her safe and secure haven, and the crow steals it. The 'crow' thus symbolises the masters of patriarchal society. The parrots are the typical average self-centred middle class, who pose innocence and only guard their own selfish private interests in life. They have no individual voice and can only clamour in unison the patriarchalised notions. They are selfishly blunt to the sufferings of the 'sparrow'/woman. The climax of Tendulkar's play highlights the casual brutality of the androcentric society that can mercilessly crush and pulverise deviant voices, particularly the voice of the woman.