The show will go on, says play director

BANGALORE: Theatre director Karthik Kumar is unfazed in the face of a raging controversy over the staging of Shekinah Jacob's play, Ali J, this weekend. In fact, he's sure the schedule won't change and the show will go on.
Ali J is about the search for identity, need for belonging, uneasy position at the wrong end of inclusivity, and about being a Muslim in today's India, said Karthik, co-founder of 'evam', a performing arts entrepreneurship, in an interview.Ali J was the first Indian theatre production to be invited to perform at the Edinburgh Fringe.
Kasab and Babu Bajarangi are characters in your play. What's the message you are trying to convey?
The play does mirror the Partition story but explores its meaning and significance from today's perspective. Ali is on death row and awaits his fate in a cell between that of Kasab and Babu Bajrangi. He neither subscribes to Kasab nor Bajrangi, but the nation and the people will colour him for sure.
The play was first staged in the UK and then in Mumbai. How was the response?
Fabulous. The 'outsider' identity issue is international. It's still relevant as India denies the identity of a homosexual minority with Article 377. Being Muslim in India only stands for a minority voice in a majority.
Did you expect the controversy?
Anyone can choose to get offended or threatened by a work of art stating a perspective. But the irony is that it's being deemed 'anti-national' -- isn't it national to be expressing a voice with freedom? In fact, the perspective of Ali J is highly Gandhian: It says that Partition should have never happened, and one wishes it didn't and won't ever again.
Would you go ahead with the play despite the opposition?
I have no right to stop people from objecting to the play, just as another has no right to stop an artist from performing his or her work.