As a result of a complicated birth, journalist Rahila Gupta's son developed cerebral palsy. Told he would never walk, talk or read, Gupta spent Nihal's childhood and adolescence battling schoolteachers, her husband and occasionally her son himself in attempting to secure him the best possible life. With the help of a facilitated communication specialist and some progressive educators, Nihal's mother managed to uncover a sensitive, mischievous and funny personality that most of the world couldn't see. Gupta's one-woman play about Nihal's life and unexpected death is written with touching frankness and – as the title suggests – eloquent verse, channelling personal experience into a powerfully moving piece performed by Jaye Griffiths.
Griffiths shifts between addressing the audience as Gupta, often with disarming directness, and inhabiting the various other figures in the story. She brings such a passionate warmth and raw commitment to the work that audiences would be forgiven for assuming she was its author. Griffiths also captures the gentle humour of Gupta's writing perfectly; there's an emotional range to the show that ends up packing a powerful punch.
Nihal – ever-present in the form of a large, framed photograph – is represented first through a baby's basket, then a wheelchair as Griffiths re-enacts scenes from his life. We see him as a newborn, brought home from the hospital by two anxious parents, later learning at the computer with his now single mother, and in one final moment of joy, whizzing across a mountain zip-wire on holiday. What's so compelling about Gupta's narrative, however, is its that she never masks her darker thoughts and frustrations: there's space to express being 'disabled and proud', she says – what about 'disabled and pissed off?'
The poetic form works brilliantly – always enhancing, rather than distracting from, the content. The rhythmic verse gives the piece an engrossing pace, and Gupta's grounded self-awareness means she never indulges in overly literary or romanticised techniques. This very personal story never shies away from its political context – Gupta's determination to for her son to bloom in an uncaring and unprepared system is as much a call for a society to recognise, empower and provide for disabled people as it is a devoted hymn to her lost child.
