But this is a fascinating subject to explore and debate on. In the story different people have different opinions on the subject – one wants to become a university professor, one want to fall in love, one wants to live in Moscow, one wants a lady to return his love, another wants sophisticated, intellectual company, another wants her old age to be spent in peace, another wants her diktats to be followed in the house – I guess what one thinks and does depends on one’s life, experience and one’s own opinion. It is difficult to keep trying for one’s whole life – or does one play with the cards that one has been dealt with (that is what Stephen Hawking says, one should do), does one live one’s not-so-perfect life but continue to daydream (about what might have been or how things will dramatically change in the future)). The play contrasts different opinions on the subject – whether hardwork is better than a leisurely life of reading and contemplating, whether living one’s dream is better than playing with the cards that life has dealt one with, whether action is more important than words (do our thoughts make us happy or does what we do make us happy – it is an interesting, deep, philosophical question), what does one do when one’s dream of the good life is very different from what is reality (does one continue trying hard for the dream life -lifespans are limited. It is a question on which many philosophers and intelligent and tortured souls have spent their lives finding answers to, and in most cases had died without finding the answers. I think another question that the play addresses is ‘What is a good life’. They (the sisters) still, in William Blake’s words,”nurse unacted desires.”īoth these are interesting comments, but I think it is not just about the sisters deferring what they want to do, but also about them being in a situation, where it was difficult for them to change their lives. With all the benefits of education, a loving home, and creature comforts, the sisters stagnate, not simply because they live in the sticks but because they keep deferring any activity that might give meaning to their existence. Chekhov scholar and the translator of the play version that I read, Laurence Senelick, in his introduction to the play, describes this predicament thus : Their lives, of course, change across the play, and some of the changes are interesting, but the sisters don’t seem to be happy about it. Interestingly, the play also touches on the inability of the sisters to do anything about their predicament – they continue to live their life (which according to them is dreary), while longing for what they have lost and contemplating on what might have been. ![]() One can also identify with the sisters’ predicament – of having moved from a cultural centre to a small town, and yearning for the cultural sophistication that they have left behind. I know that life there would have changed in the intervening years, but I would like to atleast go back and visit my favourite haunts (if, fortunately, they are still there), and find out what the people I knew then are doing now. ![]() I, myself, have missed every city that I have lived in, since childhood, and have yearned to go back. I also remember other friends who went to work abroad yearning to come back to their homecountry (and paradoxically, if they come back to their homecountry, yearning to go back abroad!). I remember one of my friends who left Delhi to live in a smaller city, yearning for the life she had left behind. It is a romantic yearning which a lot of people have. One could identify with the yearning of the sisters to move to a place where they had lived during their childhood, and which is also a cultural centre which has sophisticated people. The play also touches on the contrast between the dream life that the sisters and their brother want to live and their dreary everyday existence, and their yearning for Moscow where they had spent their childhood and to which they want to return back. The story follows the life of the three sisters and their brother and their relationships with different people across a few years. Their brother Andrey also lives with them. The sisters befriend some of the army officers. ![]() The play is about three sisters – Olga, Masha and Irina, who live in a small Russian town, which has an army garrison. I got inspired by our conversation and thought I will read ‘Three Sisters’. ![]() I haven’t read any of Chekhov’s plays before, though I have read some of his short stories. One of my Russian friends told me recently that she played a part in a performance of the Anton Chekhov play ‘Three Sisters’.
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