What Happens Next? Or: Donors vs. Receivers? Essay

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What happens next?
The play “Harvest” is an intriguing and unique piece that have won the hearts of many audiences to the extent of winning the Onassis Award Theater in 1997. Manjula Padmanabhan, a Delhi-based writer and artist, presents relations between developed and developing countries. The play describes how first-world countries utilize the third world nations to satisfy their own needs. Further, the author describes a horrible deal in which distressed individuals from developing nations sell their body organs to affluent clients in developed countries in return for basic needs such as shelter, food, water and money for themselves and their families. In a nutshell, the third world nations are perceived as “donors” of raw materials, and the first world is “receivers” and consumes such products for their survival. In a nutshell, the play pinpoints the high-tech parody on the trade of human organs from developing nations to the western countries.
The play centres Om –an Indian citizen who signs to donate body organ to an American woman, Ginni for financial benefits owing to the poor economic conditions and lack employment opportunities in Mumbai. Consequently, Ginni compensates Om generously for him to lead a comfortable and healthy life. In return, Om is required to harvest healthy organs whenever Ginni needs them. As such, Ginni gains full control of Om’s life from what and when eats, people he interacts with and to the extent of how he uses the bathroom. In reality, Ginni controls Om’s entire family from the beginning up to the end when Om’s ailing brother, Jeetu, is swapped to donate the organ on behalf of Om. Unfortunately, the donor does not match Ginni expectation, thus leading to seeds of agitation and confrontation between the two parties – the donors and receivers. Other characters featured in the play include ma, Om’s mother, Jaya Om’s wife, and Guards that represents the receiver’s manipulators.
The play contains political and social arrangements. The author presents the legal, moral and ethical debates about organ sales. The title of the play “Harvest” clearly describes the human organs sale taken from the third world war to the West Countries (Ramachandran, 162). The advancement in scientific technology over the years has enabled the prolongation of human life through body transplants. With west countries having more significant financial muscle, people from these regions can manipulate “poor” and jobless individuals in the developing countries to buy their body parts rights in exchange for financial resources. For instance, Om agrees to sell his body organs to Ginni to improve his living standard by access to household goods such as television, toilet, television, gym and other valu...