Two Special, But One More than the Other

Joshi and Oak in a promotional still

A few weeks ago, in a very cramp-seated Dinanath Mangeshkar Natyagriha, I watched the much acclaimed २ Special. The play has been winning accolades across the many Award Functions that the Marathi industry generates. It is a matter of great pride for me how for years the vernacular news papers and TV channels have been giving theatre just as much importance as films. Because the 'Star' culture in Marathi is a bare minimum, these awards are also often much more credible than their counterparts on Hindi GECs. Which is why, I had a lot of expectations from २ Special (a play my mother was watching for the second time and my mom's judgement of the arts is something I trust a lot). While most of the play did live up to expectations, a certain aspect left me massively confused and even worried.

The play opens in a very elaborate box set. A sound track featuring jingles from the late 80s tell us what year this is. A young fanboy (watch out for this boy!) waiting for News Editor Milind Bhagwat (Jeetendra Joshi) very tactfully tells us everything we need to know. So Bhagwat is an honest, hard-hitting, wordsmith journalist. Enters Meenu Jog (Girija Oak), his former lover and intern, and somebody who married well. Oh and yes, she's dumped him 10 years ago. If that isn't enough drama, she's also a PRO of the company against which Bhagwat is writing an article.

In this 10 years, Bhagwat has been fired, broke, gotten married, has a son and survived the accidental handicap of his son (all perfectly put in places to make us feel bad for him) and done everything except forgiven Jog. He tells her how she ruined everything for him and keeps hurling taunts at her but surprisingly is in no mood to listen to her side of the story.

She on the other hand maintains her dignity for most of the play and once when he's holding her by her shoulders sharply tells him how she left because this imposing that he does. I want to applaud. Here is a strong female character from 1989 refusing to be subjugated by anything. Here on however, the writer seems to have lost out of the courage he had handed to the woman. She proceeds to tell him how cruel fate played games, how she was molested, almost committed suicide, was married off out of pity (thus making her infinitely grateful of the man who 'accepted' her), has to support her marriage financially and is still getting sexually harassed at work. And she's pregnant.
Oddly enough, that works excellently in balancing out both sides. Sure the guy had to wait tables at a beer bar, but the girl almost got raped so it's okay. All this is enough for the guy to reconsider printing the news that will cost her her job as a PRO.
Because she wasn't as evil as he thought all these years, situations forced her to do that. God forbid if she had left him because he suffocated her. That would be utterly shameful to the entire female race.

The dialogues are great, the characters are well shaped, the pace works. The problem lies in how easily we have accepted the fact that a woman must have a terrific explanation for the incorrect decisions she takes. Even better if she is strong enough to not offer them for very long, because she can't sound defensive. Here I must mention, that the story of how her sister forced her to go to Mumbai (where the ill-fated incident happened) has no other relevance to the play.

The other problem I have with the play, (though not as big as the first one) is the not-very-subtle names. His newspaper is called Hindustan Daily. Her company is called India Builders. His newspaper used to be an honest supplement but commercial companies like hers have brought that honesty down. This just feels like another addition to India Versus Hindustan cliché that seems to convey that manipulation, capitalization and dishonestly are all Western values corrupting the Indian ones. The play is set in the wake of Privatization and Liberalization in the country, also an era that marks the changing face of journalism. Which is why every time Bhagwat starts his cry of helplessness it feels like a complaint against the modern values, something that has somewhat become a very common theme in Marathi fiction. 

Over the last two years some of the most popular shows on Zee Marathi have displayed themes like a woman managing to win the love of her bipolar, aggressive husband, a woman accepting the man she's been married off to, because her lover turned out to be a cheat and a woman managing to find perfect balance between her six mother-in-laws while also converting her evil step-mom.

'Don't Worry, Be Happy', a play I saw some two weeks apart from 2 Special is extremely modern, relevant and yet manages to end on the working woman returning to her household and husband, despite how visibly bad they are for each other. My mother returned home after watching the widely popular 'Selfie' and declared that she was super-confused about if the play actually advocated things like how a woman must stay with her family and maybe not have an abortion even if she's a working actress.

On the other hand, there's a play like Samudra, a story from the early 80s that talks about the wife's infidelity. The very mature and progressive play somehow manages to turn a blind eye to the fact that the husband violently attacks his wife who ends up making peace with him.

The problem is, that all of these plays are actually progressive. They have modern characters, ideals, conversations and scenarios. They hardly endorse traditional values that need to be let go of. Marathi plays have always upheld strong female characters right from Tendulkar's Sakharam Binder and Elkunchwar's Party. But the worrisome part remains these unintended, perhaps subconscious portrayals of women who must either conform or have a reasonable explanation. 
And sadly, that remains not a problem with just plays, but extends to most of our societies as well.

Not Just Her Story

(Theatre Enthusiast Mati Rajput writes about 07/07/07 - The Play. Mati Rajput is a Thespoan, an Arts student, illustrator for this blog and the winner of multiple acting awards in the inter-collegiate theatre circuit. She's also pretty cool to hang out with.)

   Have you ever been in a situation where you're sitting comfortably in the front row of Prithvi and in the very next moment you're being executed in Tehran for a crime you have not committed? That's precisely what Faezeh Jalali's 777 does to you.

   777 is based on true events. It depicts the story of Reyhaneh Jabbari, a nineteen year old teenager. The Play opens with 6 girls wearing a hijab, as they enter the stage singing in harmony. It seems like quite an ordinary play and then the actors start to unravel the incident. Reyhaneh has been played by 7 actors, each of them equally justifying their part. Faezeh Jalali - the director of the play chooses to use a format similar to a skit where all actors are on stage most of the time. The men though lesser in number are also in no mood to be left behind in terms of impact. The ensemble works precisely well in the favour of this play. I like how all the costumes had a grayish tinge. The hijab works just fine to add to the feel of an incident that took place in Iran and continuously reminds me that this particular story might have a Kurdish background but for the hijab, it could happen anywhere and to anyone . Arghya Lahiri's light design has a story of its own and it makes the play even more magical. The use of catwalk, quick costume changes, flawless character transitions, minimum number of properties and maximum utilisation of it makes the play a directorial genius. 

      Reyhaneh would've come across as any other ambitious girl with an aim of excelling as an interior designer until Mr. Sarbandi, a 46 year old surgeon tried to sexually assault her. Mr. Sarbandi was found dead after the incident. But Reyhaneh only admitted to stabbing him once in her defense and claimed to have nothing to do with the murder. However considering that the man belonged to the Iranian Intelligence Agency, she got thrown into solitary confinement almost immediately.  In prison, the policemen practiced third degree investigation to gain information and make her confess. The play keeps repeating the potrayal of the traumatic incident that took place, an excellent reminder of the number of times Reyhaneh was forced to recollect the incident and how every time it left her in a different state of mind. She decided to write about her pain on bits of paper to narrate the story of agony and torture that she had been through and in a beautiful choice of words, hoped for it to spread like 'seeds of dandelion'. 

    But soon she got caught with a pen and got accused of being a spy. Later, the police inspectors compelled her to make  false confessions with the threat of imprisoning her family members. With that, Reyhaneh got sent to a prison in Tehran where she befriended her inmates and made peace with the situation. She was now getting out of her depression. Her urge to attain more education in the prison and repeated efforts in the direction showed how hopeful, bold and strong she was. A special note here about the effortless switch between an inmate and a warden by Suruchi Aulakh. 

    Every transition taken by the actors to change into another character was an example of mere perfection. From Reyhaneh's imprisonment in Tehran to her execution, I sat there numb, with a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes and I couldn't stop myself from breaking down. I got so engrossed in the play that I felt like a part of her story and found myself helpless, rebellious, optimistic and I also encountered myself losing hope. Another special mention here for Niharika Lyra Dutta who's graduation performance I had witnessed just a couple of weeks ago and in her career debut, she became a major reason behind my relentless weeping.

     777 managed to stun me as well as all the other people present in the audience. It's not unusual to see people stand up in joy and applaud to appreciate a work of art but after watching Reyhaneh's story, people could hardly get up from their seats and exit from the state the play had put them into. This is the beauty of 777. I would recommend everybody to watch it for the performers, for the way it has been crafted, for its ability to make you feel every emotion and for leaving the audience mesmerized by its finesse. 

The Drama School, Mumbai and the Theory of Acceptance

For a long time I have believed that a lot of us do Theatre for a sense of acceptance. Now really, the term 'acceptance' in itself is ambiguous for acceptance can be just as much of one's ideas as of one's personality. I joined the Drama Team at Mithibai sheerly because it sounded cool but I know I stayed on because I was accepted there the way I was. My bipolar, whimsical self and a perverted sense of interpretation of knowledge wouldn't have taken shape but for there.
And that is probably why the Drama School Mumbai (DSM) occupies a big part of my heart now.

10th June, the talents of DSM graduated from the space that's been their home. They put up 9 performances to showcase their learnings to the world. It was a big moment. Here were some fine self-concieved pieces presented by youngsters very sure of themselves. Just two months ago, these people were collectively struggling to unlearn a lot of what they had learned as performers and balance the enormous load of knowledge unleashed on them.

Acceptance incidentally seemed to become a common theme through the performances. The motherly Nitika, known for her love of canines became so childlike in front of a dog on stage that I had goosebumps. Gaurangi - awkward, stiff, goofy - rebuilt herself from scratch, stripped to bare essentials (literally and figuratively) and put her pieces together so efficiently, it was unbelievable. Confident lads Vivaan and Rushab transformed as one put on a 'loser' act for most moments and the other became a helpless farmer in the drought-stricken Maharashtra. Ram did what he does best, an intense scene with a touch of humour. Given how good they were, I thought it was important that when I write a blog as a new theatre-waala, I talk about my peers too.

From the moment I have met Vaishnavi RP, she has been a sharp, headstrong girl with a don't-care attitude flaked with some wilful moments. But today on stage, she shone in a delicate, graceful piece that turned the character of Draupadi as we know it on it's head and presented a woman completely unapologetic about her sexuality. When Trinetra Tiwari portrayed Benvolio in the DSM version of Romeo And Juliet, it wasn't devoid of his Ajmeri accent. But this Trinetra jumped from playing an old man to a young one, from a brittle English poem to Urdu couplets and the only thing missing was his accent. Sagar Patil may helm from a small village in Maharashtra, but he's had an incredible journey of evolving as an actor and a person and then returning to his roots as he attempted to speak about the issue of farmer's suicide.

Someone I always believed was the kid of the lot, Dheer Hira would potrayal the elderly Friar Laurence in 'Juliet..' to the T. One of my favorites, this actor shone in two different pieces and made me gasp with his extremely realistic performances quite a few times. His own graduation piece, a take on homosexuality was also one that left me amazed. Dheer displays not just a knack for acting but also creating good theatre effortlessly.

Another star of the lot, Shubhankar did his bit in almost everything on the brochure. He sang, gave vocals, created music and even did his cameos, but when he came on stage as Dheer's shadow, jumping, dancing and providing a lot of feels to the audience, I was left wanting to see more. His directorial piece was no different - minimum words but fabulous enactment; in Shubhankar again is not just a great actor but the theatremaker that DSM aims to create.

My bias however remains with Niharika Lyra Dutta. DSM's Juliet shines throughly in every moment that she's on stage. Her piece about life in a technological dystopia was among the most effective creations of the evening. As she sat in silence at the climax of another piece, her priceless expressions stole the show. Lyra is already working in a play and I can see her jumping from one project to another, excelling in all.

The 'apparent rockstar' Kaustav emceed, sadly not performing for logistical reasons. But this is a guy that stepped in within 3 days when Romeo broke his foot. I've seen the kind of passion his self contains and I am impatient to see him on a bigger stage soon.

I was lucky to have been a part of this journey of the students when I was hired to operate sound for their mid-year production. In the matter of ten days before the opening night of the show, the team had become like family to me. Over the course of the next two months that I travelled with them, I discovered monuments that these people were, full of talent. Of course I was dead tired of them by the end of those two months like anyone would be, but they stayed put in my heart and thoughts.

The alumnus that I have met from DSM curiously also displays a similar warmth. I don't know if it's the school or it's the plain existence of 13 theatre people in one room for a year. If the latter is true, it would be a step forward towards proving my hypothesis of acceptance a theory. DSM has opened admissions for the next batch of students, for the a new year that will soon kickstart. Meanwhile these 12 brilliant individuals will be stepping out in the theatre world that I hope accepts them just as quickly and warmly as they accepted me.
I can't wait.

Karl Marx and the Importance of Loitering

The sewage pits below my office have been opened for cleaning. Black gross liquid is strewn across the path that leads into the building. The first day I walked there, I was trying my best to not get any of that goo on my feet. That is, until I saw a man standing chest deep in the pit, cleaning it.

It's a little like what happens when Karl Marx appears in Kalba Devi. From the bookmyshow info of the play, also titled Karl Marx In Kalbadevi, I had already been introduced to the idea of him having lunch at Bhagat Tarachand - something that he also mentions a lot of time over the course of the play. What he only talks about once is the homeless people he comes across when he comes out of the place.
Karl Marx In Kalbadevi (KMIK) follows a very casual narrative jumping from autobiographical pieces to fictional encounters as he hangs around Mumbai with the director of the play Manoj Shah. Written by popular Gujarati writer Uttam Gada, the play is in no way 'Marxism in 90 minutes' or anything of that sort. Instead communal philosophies get gently sprinkled across hilarious accounts by Marx.

KMIK is funny, unapologetic and subtle but sharp in a running commentary about the state of things in the country and about communism across the globe in general. While I neither identify as a person with leftist or rightist ideologies, watching this monument of a man tear down discrimination and economic imbalance is throughly enjoyable.

But the best part about the play is definitely actor Satchit Puranik. When you walk into the auditorium, his Marx is fast asleep on the floor and the director of the play himself has to walk on stage to wake him up. But once he gets up and starts talking, there is no looking back. Both the pace of the play and Puranik's energies keep soaring and you in their grasp. I'm the kind of person not used to sitting in one place and often find myself squirming in the seats during the best kind of plays. But miraculously enough, I was completely unaware of when I sloped or sat up. When the play got over, I was left hungry for much more of this conversation.

Puranik in the play

This isn't the first time Satchit Puranik has left me inspired. I ran into him a couple of times at Writers' Bloc and the one incident that stayed was his panel discussion about the book, play and movement - Why Loiter?

Firstly a little about Why Loiter. This is a book written by three women in the year 2006. Mentioning their gender becomes important here because of the content of the book. They pose a simple question - why aren't women allowed to loiter around?
It's not something to which a lot of us have given a thought before. Certainly not me.

The book then grew to be a movement initiated by a wonderful girl called Neha Singh. She realized that the only answer to this question is actually going out and wandering. Soon girls in Rajasthan were loitering in pubs and bars while girls across the border were stepping out too. Men were walking around in dresses on Juhu Beach.

And one of those men was Satchit Puranik. Puranik turned Why Loiter into a play. This wasn't exactly a scripted dramatic performance. Instead it was real people walking on stage and recalling their stories to an audience. There's not much I can talk about the play, not having seen it. But I intend to watch it really really soon, because how can I not?

Now here's why I say this event also left me inspired. About a couple of weeks ago, a friend suggested that we have a rendezvous at this shady bar she and I like to frequent for it's impeccable Prawns Curry. We generally sit at the table closest to the door and she isn't free from the stares of the other only-men customers of the place. This time however, it wasn't just her and me. It was three other female friends as well. I prod them into going in without me at first, and they went straight to a table upstairs, in the AC room. None of that sitting by the door, 'because girls aren't meant to be here'. Girls are meant to be everywhere.

The men stared (more in surprise than in perversion) while the girls chattered and laughed on. I have to confess, I was a little uncomfortable myself because fighting the good fight for the opposite gender is often tricky and looked down upon here.

The night didn't end there. An hour or so later, we were at Marine Drive reading poetry and smoking cigarettes. It's something I regularly do with my guy friends, but 'taking girls with me' at 2 pm is a questionable choice. But when we sat there, I was no longer thinking about how all four of them were my responsibility. I nodded off on Marine Drive itself, while the girl continued their fiesta.

So there you go. 'Hence, LOITER'. And that play might not be on anytime soon (and this post is a little late for when another show of KMIK was scheduled) but if you manage to watch either of them, tell me what you think!

Opening Bite

It is a very confusing world.
A play that was successfully performed two decades ago gets banned in 2015.
People taking selfies in a café have no idea that the grey building behind it is a theatre and a heritage site.
Most plays that get well-sized advertisements are too expensive to actually watch.
Ticket price range from Rs 2000 to Rs 125.
College productions are directed by people who graduated decades ago (or never did).

It is a very confusing world. And here I am, trying to satisfy my incessant need to be a part of it. 
"The chronicles of a 19 year old Theatre enthusiast trying to make sense of the art he loves being around" sounds way too pretentious. 
So instead I'm going to call it the adventures of a Nautanki attempting to watch whatever play/performance his pocket allows him to attend.

And what's easiest on the pockets is free events.

So Saturday, 4th June I found my aboard a packed Mumbai Local on my way to attend an event by Mumbai Local. Mumbai Local is an initiative by Junoon Theatre. This particular day had Theatre Veteran Ramu Ramanathan talk about the A to Z of theatre in Bombay. And he refused to stop at using that as just an expression. So he began on the first letter of the English Alphabet with Ambedkari Jalsa as a part of the cultural scene, complete with images of the festivities from the BDD chawls; all the way up to Z for Zindabadness, the eternal longevity of arts. The remaining 24 letters were peppered with incidents, monuments, anecdotes and witty remarks about the left and the right.

Now to be completely honest, I am not very well-versed with the writings of Ramu Ramanathan. The man has written some 50 plays and directed about a dozen or two. More importantly, when Ramu Ramanathan talks, you want to sit up and listen. I have had the opportunity to listen to him speak across a couple of platforms recently and once you realize what a plethora of information he has, it becomes difficult to not attend every talk of his you can. Even during the Junoon talk, it was phenomenal how with each letter he jumped from a reference to a Marathi poet, a Gujarati playwright, a Malayali performer and then perhaps back to another Marathi poet.

What was also amazing about the talk was that it did not restrict itself to just plain theatre. While that remained a common plot, soon you were listening to stories about people you had never heard of, forming pictures of what the city must have looked like 30 years ago in your mind and understanding a rather colourful history of art and politics. What proved to be the most humbling part of the evening though was this man referring to himself as an illiterate in the end of the talk. Watta man, man!

The conversation wandered from cultural events by the construction workers, intercollegiate drama, cultural wingsa of trade unions, how 'reading plays' is a codeword for 'daaru' and how 'naatyagrihas' in Mumbai are generally to be found close to three places,
~A railway station
~A pub
~And a brothel

There's events like this happening all across the city. In a time where it's so much easier to scroll down our Instagram feeds to catch up on the choicest of Art, we often forget how important it is to also listen to those who traveled to the nooks and corners of the land in search of such work, way before social media. The talks at Mumbai Local aren't just for the theatre enthusiasts, they are for anybody looking to enrich their lives with whatever comes our way. Now is when we have the time, now is when we can start gathering enough to someday turn into these travelers ourselves. Next up, Mumbai Local has a glimpse into an art curator's practices by Ranjit Hoskote - also a poet and a cultural theorist.

As for this blog, it's not literature that matters. It's just the world of arts, explored by the mind of a silly 19 year old. In the coming months, it's going to be a mess of watching plays, looking at art, listening to people and of course the enchanting and sometimes ugly world of college theatre. Again, all through the eyes of a silly 19 year old.
Stay tuned?