The Queen of Hearts and Ace of Spades, a play originally written in Odia, was run at the theatre Sri Ram Centre with full House on 22nd December, 2024. It has been beautifully scripted by Shri Biswajit Das , translated by Shri Samanjas Das and directed by Dr Satybrata Rout . This play had won four out of five Sangeet Natak academy awards in 1967 for Best Play, Best Director, Best Male lead and Best Female lead. Shri Samanjas Das is a civil servant of 1990 batch and has translated Odia work into English. Enigmatic as the title is, it aptly describes the cross winding of the heart represented by the Queen of Hearts with the darker wisdom represented by the Ace of Spades. The play juxtaposes naivety with hardness, superstition with reason, steadfastness with disbelief and ends with the sacrifice of motherly love at the altar of patriarchy. The script is excellent with twists and turns and many dimensions have been explored in this short play.
The play is thought provoking and in a subtle way depicts how our society is fragmented by patriarchal dominance and by notions of lunar configurations casting an effect on the life of a person which are believed to be predicted accurately by an astrologer. It also dwells on the abysmal position of women even in an educated family. The question of ownership of the womb of a woman arises in an unstated manner whereby all family members but the mother seems to exercise their rights on it. The story is multidimensional and it explores the fact that even the intelligentsia is affected by the malaise of domination and possessiveness. While the main character Prafulla is an avid reader and believes in freedom from tradition, yet his mind cannot accept that his wife has her own rights as an individual. But a simple doctor practicing his profession is able to perceive the world in a more natural and accepting manner.

The play is woven around Prafulla who is a professor and teaches dialectical materialism opposed to spirituality and religion and his newly wed wife Shaila who becomes religious after her wedding. The professor desires that his wife should have an identity of her own and should avoid all religious fervour but she is influenced by her deeply religious father in law. She performs simple rituals which Prafulla looks down upon with disdain. When Prafulla realizes that his wife is pregnant, he thinks that she is too young to become a mother. He literally forces her to go in for abortion against her will in the name of her identity without realizing that he is trampling on her identity as a mother. Prafulla’s friend, Sukanta who is a doctor does not lecture on free will but intuitively, he understands that Shaila should exercise her freedom to be a mother or not. The twist in the story is the religious father in law who believes in destiny and Lord Hari’s will but when he hears from an astrologer the ill prediction about his yet to be born grandson, he actively acquiesces to the abortion desired by his son even when his daughter in law Shaila seeks his refuge against abortion. The father son duo in their own ways, based on their own beliefs stifle the voice of a mother and her unborn child without realizing their prejudices and biases. Shaila is offered the opportunity to leave the patriarchal system by Dr. Sukanta but she too fails to take the opportunity. Thus, the continuous struggle between the Queen of Hearts and the Ace of Spades goes on.
The play was enacted beautifully by the artists. The vigour and the energy of Prafulla played by Ramapaty Soti was impressive and the changing emotions on the face of Shaila played by Nikita Bharati were evocative of agony and innocence. Dr Sukanta’s role was well played and he acted as the sanest person in a cauldron of insanity. The hypocrisy of Jatadhari played by Akshay Singh Thakur was visible by his insinuations of spiritual practices and great knowledge while his predictions were gory and unpalatable. Dr Satybrata Rout played the rigid father in law suffering due to his own contorted belief system. All the artists Pushkar Tripathi, Ayush Bansal, Swati Singh, M.K. Raina, Chittaranjan Tripathi, Ravindra Tripathi and Ajit Rai depicted the central aspect of the character in an impressive way. Even after half a century of its being written, the play continues to be relevant and underscores the need to introspect ourselves and resolve our inherent contradictions.

Authored by: Ashima Bansal, Commissioner(Air Cargo, Exports), Delhi Customs Zone.