'Kafka's Monkey' is an Urdu adaptation of Kafka’s famous short story ' A Report to an Academy'. In this reading from the piece, Sunil delivers a stirring monologue that explores themes of isolation, cruelty and loss. A meditation on the meanness of human behaviour, the performance forces a confrontation of the act of theft - of home and of identity.
This piece is an extract of the complete story and a portion of a theatrical performance that Sunil is currently developing. Here's a short summary of the story :
Wounded and captured by an expedition, an ape finds himself aboard a boat headed for Europe. He has been violently captured from his forest home and realizes that escape - regaining the animal freedom he enjoyed - is impossible. He decides to settle for the limited escape he can grasp. He simply wants "a way out". For him, this requires taking on as much of the human world around him as possible. If he is to regain his independence, it must be as something other than his original self.