Navayana (Fresh Air)

In Navayana, a group of college students from Bengaluru on an NCC camp lose their way in a forest on the border of Wayanad and Kodagu. A hundred years ago, children who had caught smallpox were bound in this forest in the name of a ritual and left behind. Their spirits still wander the forest. As these spirits enter the bodies of the NCC students, trying to leave the forest and return to their community, two of the children come face to face and share the bonds they carry within them. They talk about how children see social constraints, and about the childhood they are losing because of them. The play speaks to the safe space every child needs in order to speak freely.