Beggar Woman

The beggar woman is a mysterious figure who hides in the bushes of the French embassy garden and occasionally peeks her head out to watch the goings-on at the reception. The voices explain that she is from Burma and that she got pregnant at the age of seventeen and left home. They state that the beggar woman walked across Asia for ten years and finally ended up in Calcutta. She has lost all her hair from malnutrition and is bald. The beggar woman can be heard singing at various points throughout the play. At the end of India Song, the voices indicate that the beggar woman has followed Anne-Marie and her friends to the island. While Anne-Marie represents the status of white European women in colonial Asia, the beggar woman represents the conditions of life for Asian women.

George Crawn

George Crawn is an Englishman and an...