Harvest by Manjula Padmanabhan

👁✨“They bathe him in praise while gutting him like a chicken!”✨👁

First published in 1997, Manjula Padmanabhan’s award-winning play, “Harvest” focuses on Om, a young Indian man suffering from poorness and unemployment, and his family. Om decides to sell the rights to his body organs to a buyer from the Western world. With the money received in change for organs, Om wished to improve his family’s living standards and provide the household with enough food, television and something as basic as an individual toilet with a shower.

The playwright sets the play in a futuristic Indian society in 2010 where the debates surrounding the ethical and biological issues of organ harvesting and sales have been overcome. Through the play, Padmanabhan comments on political and social dispositions.

In the play, scientific advancement has reached a place where human life can be prolonged through body transplant. The multinational company, InterPlanta, headhunts for organ donors in third-world countries. They provide a contact module through which donors can contact the receivers and a television. Upon signing up his body, Om is now basically owned by Ginni, a typical blond hair, blue eyes American girl.

The other family members- Jeetu, Om’s brother and Jaya, Om’s wife who is pretending to be his sister to dodge one condition laid by InterPlanta- are also seen as potential organ donors. When Jeetu is reluctant, he is forcefully taken away by the guards and is never to be seen. And Jaya is forced to be impregnated by Virgil, who is another receiver. Jaya stands up for herself and states that she’ll only let that happen if Virgil accepts his mortality and when he doesn’t, she decides that she’d rather die than be a puppet to be pulled and willed by him. Om’s mother doesn’t bother with whatever happens to her family as she is engrossed in watching television.

Padmanabhan highlights the dark side of globalisation and capitalism, where it is accepted that the first world countries can abuse their power to subjugate third world countries and use their people at the convenience to benefit themselves- this can be seen as neo-colonialism where the organ market in “Harvest” can be perceived as the new slave trade where none of the donors has a free choice. In the play, the commoditisation of organs is a metaphor for socio-economic exchange. She calls attention to the greed for immortality and money which is displayed by the Western company, and Om’s mother also displays similar greed for property and money and does not care who she or her family achieves that.

Ultimately, “Harvest” establishes a contrast between impoverished and poor India and the greedy, wealthy West.

Padmanabhan’s writing is simple yet highly effective, the characters are well-crafted. The play is haunting only because it seems too close to reality.

I remember reading this book for the first time and being completely agonised. I loved it and hated it at the same time. I would highly recommend this play to anyone who loves to read books laden with sci-fi and dystopian themes.🧡