Rewriting the narrative: People with glasses can be funny too

As the guest speaker during the MOCA launch, Playwright, Screenwriter, Producer and Director Ankita Singh who grew up in Kirikiriroa Hamilton proves that women can be a jack of all trades by telling her story to everyone during the event.

Before becoming the woman she is now, Ankita struggled as she said, “stuck out like a sore thumb” from primary school to Year 9 and during those times, she felt excluded from her peers. She was caught between cultures locked between worlds.

However, when she made a speech during Year 9 by having a different way of looking at the world and from her own words, “Normal is relative.” After the speech, the perspective of herself and her peers changed and one of her classmates said, “Didn’t know people with glasses are funny.”

Her classmates stopped making fun of her because, “I made them feel something. The power of comedy and how to humanise myself. Laugh together, cry together, it’s all about feeling.”

Ankita discussed about the power of representation, she started doing drama in high school. It is important to see someone whom you look like, “If you can see it, you can feel it” she said.

She likes writing dystopian, comedy and sci-fi and talked about creating a theatre piece and series can take a couple of months or years as it is an intense process. As storytelling must make an impact and supporting people with a common goal.

One of her theatre piece with the Auckland Theatre Company is ‘Basmati Bitch’, ‘it is about in the neonlit streets of futurist Aotearoa, an ex-MMA fighter discovers you can’t ever really escape the past.’ Also rice being illegal.

In Ankita’s career, she has learn so much and meet friends through this career. She learns how to rewrite the narrative, create a better community, communicate an idea then she said, “By truly changing society, it takes courage and technical skills to dig deep into hearts.”