Play captures plight of the elderly

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Jayawant Dalvi’s Sandhya Chhaya was staged by the Shri Ram Rep Co. (SRC) as part of a festival that I missed as I was out of town. I caught the last play which is a sample of the progress the repertory company has made over the years.

The first time I saw the play was in 1978 when it was staged by the NSD in Uttara Baokar’s direction. The old couple was played by the other two stalwarts of the Rep Co, Manohar Singh and Surekha Sikri. The play is about the loneliness of elderly, a situation that can really torment the old often leading to tragic results. As one grows older, one looks forward to the children whom one brought up with care and love, to display some concern and above all spare some time for the parents. In this age of cellular families where the parents have shifted out of the joint family, the children also feel no compunction in leaving their parents. At best they are willing to help them financially and see to their comforts as long as it does not compromise their freedom.
This truth is tough to bear for the old couple who keep hoping that their son will return to them. But he is happy in USA with his all American wife. The younger son is in the Air Force and expected home on leave shortly. In the meanwhile, the old couple while away their time in reliving old memories, squabbling a bit, looking at old photos and generally trying to survive gracefully. In order to entertain himself, the old man dials random phone numbers. He connects to a lively girl who reminds him of their dead daughter. The humour in the situation is created by the girl’s grandfather picking up the phone.
There is enough to break the predominant mood of sentimental emotionalism. For instance, the arrival of Vinay who knocks on their door by mistake. Loath to stay back, Vinay is grabbed by the old man, starved of outside interaction. The couple adopt Vinay to the extent of deciding to marry one son to his marriageable sister. Tragedies follow one upon the other. First they discover that Dinu, the elder son is married and then comes the news that their second son has been killed in the Indo-Pak war. Dinu arrives with his wife. They live in a hotel. The distance between the father and son is dismal. The mother pleads with Dinu to stay back for a little while longer. That very night, the old couple decide to take an overdose of sleeping pills.
The play is translated in Hindi by Dr Kusum Kumar, a playwright in her own right. Except for the names, there is very little in the Hindi version for it to be played in Maharashtrian costumes.
However, director Vivek Mishra must have considered the fact that it does lend an edge to set action in a specific milieu. NSD graduate Sameep Singh, whom one has seen in several NSD plays including as Peer Gynt in Henrik Ibsen’s eponymous play, has never disappointed. He is all there as Nana and brings a certain quaintness to the role with his walk and gestures. Shobha Sharma does a good job as Nani the mother. She is very confident and plays Sameep gesture for action. Mishra the director does a good job in trying to keep sentimentality at bay. The dream sequences do not appear organic to the script. The scenes seemed redundant when I saw play the first time and they seem stuck on today. Fortunately, the duration has been chiseled down to a little over 2 hours from the 3 hours that I sat through in 1978.
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Stand-up comedy night presented by Teamwork and Old World Culture at the India Habitat Centre: Abish And Friends was not all that cool as it was supposed to be. Let us start with friends Raghav Mandava and Neeti Palta. It appears customary now that the junior stand up comics take the stage before the star performer, perhaps to wake up the audience and prepare it for the maestro. Sometimes, one or the other will steals a march over the star. In this case, the two were a far cry from Abish in talent.
Both Raghav and Neeti think that to be successful in their profession, they must have sex and related jokes in their repertoire. Which is fine if it is not obsessive. But both were totally engaged in trying to titillate the audiences’ libido. Granted it was somewhat amazing to listen to a woman (Neeti) attempting sexual innuendo, but it became utterly boring given the continuous harangue sans finesse or flair.
Whilst his two predecessors displayed single track minds, Abish Mathew himself is more versatile in both his choice of topics and his presentational style. Though a Dilliwala, Abish carries his Kerala origins very adroitly in his sallies. He has political jokes, witty one liners in his kitty; “I think that Mayawati should be made railway minister. Someone will whistle at her then”. Abish also strummed the guitar and sang a few songs.
Stand up comedy is not alien to Indian tradition. Our folk tradition has commentators in theatre who draw their material from society and then take the annotated information back to the audience. Severally known as vidhushak, maskara, ranga, munshi, nat, joker etc these actors are part of every secular theatre form in the country. In Dastan Goi or any other story telling form, the tales told are invariably linked to contemporary reality. Perhaps our stand up comics instead of blindly imitating the western model could take a few tips from Indian tradition.