WHAT THE BODY REMEMBERS

HE lies alone on the bare stage, beneath a chair—its weight, a symbol, not of a lover, but of her groomer's lingering presence.

- ADITHI REENA AJITH

Facing the audience, she's suspended in a moment of ecstasy. The music builds slowly into a climax, like a wave, as her legs begin to move—soft at first, then swimming through the air, drowning in pleasure. At her crescendo, she reaches toward the audience, torn between wanting to stop it, resist it, yet hold on to this strange pain a little longer. Then, suddenly, the mood shifts—the score fades, the body stills, and she has broken up with her ever present 'Bhaiya', her groomer.

This is Seconds Before Coming, a searing solo play by 26-year-old theatre artist Rishika Kaushik of Delhi. The one-woman performance follows an unnamed protagonist revisiting her past, trying to understand how childhood sexual grooming continues to shape her adult life. The play debuted at Oddbird Theatre this weekend to a standing ovation. And for Kaushik, the play was far more personal, a confrontation with her own experience of sexual grooming as a child.

She first wrote the play as an essay for 'The Third Eye', by Nirantar Trust and their upcoming edition on Sexuality Through a Feminist Lens: On Pleasure & Danger. "Initially, I didn't envision it as a play, but the team at Third Eye pushed me to explore how it felt in my body, beyond just form", she says. "Once I had the story, they prompted me to consider what I could do with it."