In 2019, maraa and the women who would go on to become Freeda theatre met as a part of a network that was formed to resist sexual and caste based violence. At the time, Anushi and Angarika from maraa were documenting the struggles of the women who were part of this network, to secure legal and social justice. The stories they heard gave Anushi and Angarika  a glimpse into the systemic injustice and the isolation and grief the body endures in the aftermath of violence. Left with unanswered questions around the politics of research and documentation, and the effect that repeatedly listening to stories of violence has on the body, Anushi and Angarika, with support from Ekta, turned to theatre as a way of processing the residues. Guided by Anish Victor, they worked on a performance called ‘Chu Kar Dekho’ which was about the body’s experience of representing, witnessing and remembering. In 2021, they returned to Madhya Pradesh to share the performance with the women who they had traveled with. After the show, they extended an invitation to them to embark on a theatre making journey. 

What has emerged is the birth of a new theater collective called Freeda, an inter-generational collective of women from Madhya Pradesh. Theater proved to be a process of healing, transformation and assertion for the women. As they often share, it is from the stage that they finally received ‘justice’. The process of reinventing themselves and embarking on a theater making journey has been difficult given the social contexts the women come from. They have negotiated and resisted various forms of backlash, to assert their right to their own space, right to tell their stories on their own terms, and to ensure dignity and autonomy. They worked on their debut performance ‘Nazar Ke Samne’ for nine months. Since then, the performance has traveled across rural, peri-urban and urban India, to theatre venues, government schools, wedding halls, and other community centric spaces. The intent of the performance is to make space for girls and women to take a few hours away from household work, inhabit a safe space for sharing inter-generational experiences of violence, desires and dreams, and find ways to encourage women to question and transform their surroundings through theatre. As Freeda moves forward, the dream is to set up more grassroots theatre collectives, particularly those that are survivor led.