"Ishq jale to jale aisa" staged by IDEA on 9.10.2022 in Andheri (Mumbai)

 "Ajanabi tum mujhe zindagi ki shaam me kyon mile?"
(O Stanger, whky did you meet me in the evening of life)

"Ajanabi tum mujhe zindagi ki shaam me kyon mile?

Milna tha to dopahar me milte
Kam se kam dopahar ka taap to dekh lete" 

(Amrita Pritam wrote for Imroz)

Imroz was not merely a stopgap relationship for Amrita but it symbolised a relationship that lifts a human  being much above the boundaries of expectations and sensuality. He was almost everyone for Amrita not just for a few years but for forty long years till Amrita bid adieu to this world. He neither had  hostility for her earlier and only marriage nor for Sahir Ludhiyanvi, her latter man of choice. In a scene when a person asks Imroz does he not feel deserted when Amrita shows her special reverence for Sahir, Imroz replies why should I feel so if she still cares for me too and has written so many verses for me and me only. It is noteworthy that the intense love of Amrita for Sahir was almost one-sided and both of them neither married nor lived together. They merely met each other on the occasion of poet meet events. And Imroz was really more lucky who got contiguity of Amrita, the epitome of compassion for crores of people around the world. Amrita was the most gracious lady for Imroz notwithstanding her older age by ten years.

The only time when Imroz is sort of visibly angry is when Amrita tells him to leave her as she is of the age approaching 80 and is of no use for him and he must search some other good female partner for him.

The facial expression and body language of Amrita perfectly matched with the age of Amrita she was playing. Each of her dialogue was delivered with a septuagenarian sigh. In later scenes her hanging body characterised her old age-related difficulty in moving. Her make-up and attire also enhanced the effect of genuineness. The face of Imroz truly depicted a selfless persona whose only aim is to facilitate Amrita. Mind it that Imroz is also a painter but he never cares if his fame is badly overshadowed by a global celebrity Amrita. He actually delights in it. 'Barkate' as he addresses Amrita is always uttered with deep respect and etiquette without any fail. He is still extremely respectful for Amrita when she slipped and broke her thigh bones making her unable to move even for one step. He lifts Amrita in his arms adorably and let her perch on the armchair on her wish. Yuktarth Shrivastava and others acted in it.

Once I thought that the time-gap in dialogue-delivery was more in case of Amrita but again thought that it must be usual for a 70+ years woman she was characterising. The man who played the adviser friend of Imroz was also perfect in showing the serious countenance befitting for an uncanny sort of friend like Imroz. There there was a Sootradhara (Compere) too with good Urdu accent and impressive narrating style.

Though this play was also depicted some biographical aspects of Amrita, the  main focus remained on Imroz. You can hardly cite a male life-partner living in a separate room and still hundred percent loyal to his living muse. 

It was definitely and enriching theatre-experience for me to watch such a play directed by adept Mujeeb Khan. The dialogues written by Sadique Ansari are realistic and easy to comprehend. 

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Review by - Hemant Das 'Him'
Photos by - bejodindia blog
Send your response to - hemantdas2001@gmail.com OR editorbejodindia@gmail.com

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"Resting in peace" staged at Khar, Mumbai on 4.9.2022

The biggest punishment

 

Love is made to end in infidelity. That's well! But the moot point is what kind of most tortuous punishment should be meted out to the rival who snatched out your love. This play centers upon the crux of issue of infidelity saga. 

The spirit of Savio rises from his coffin and participates in an unstructured symposium on love life. Two other spirits Jimmy and Edward who have also been spurned in their respective love saga are there to participate. All the three storm-beaten souls share their unsuccessful experiences in love-ventures when they were alive. Ultimately, Savio is allowed to fulfil his last wish in this after-life phase. And what can be more cherished for a love-burnt vanquished soul than to devise a prolonged tortuous death of the love-adversary. The question arises here what can be the ways to implement this. Should the rival lover be first amputated mercilessly and then be tortured through the improper medical treatment in the hospital leading to watch himself helplessly to be poisoned forcibly to death? Something like this is one of the ways they ponder upon. They contemplate a lot of methods to give the maximum torture and for the longest duration. What plan they actually work out can be seen in the theatre.

Avirat Parekh has let the actors perform in a no-holds-barred manner and yet come out with a coherent progression of actions. Among three characters Savio maintains a normal degree of acting and between Jimmy and Edward one is calm and other is overly reactive. It means, all the three degrees of acting - positive, comparative and superlative are under operation at a time by the innovative director Avirat Parekh who is also the author of the play. Arjun Tanwar, Vishesh Arora and Kashish Saluja have done their best. To complement the anthology of love there was also a lady actor who too did justice with her character.

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Review by - Hemant Das 'Him'

Send your response to - hemantdas2001@gmail.com OR editorbejodindia@gmail.com

"Patna ka Superhero" performed by D for Drama at Versova (Mumbai) on 27.8.2022

 The more unbuilt you are the more it bangs!

Your substance of life does not actually lie in the happenings but around the air surrounding them. A hero is just an other man without an air of being something very very dreadful. D for Drama's play "Patna ka superhero" was performed at Creative Adda, Versova, Mumbai on 27.8.2022.

The story is around the air of dominance swaying deep into the social fabric of an underdeveloped province like Bihar. Radhe, a student of 11th Class is the boss of his school. The students are under his awe. Suddenly a newcomer boy of just 9th Class challenges his 'heroism' by slapping twice in response to one slap he received. Radhe challenges this impudent junior one to face him at the sweet shop outside the school campus and surprisingly his challenge is accepted. How this thin-built boy later sobriqueted as 'Lappd' took the bull by the horns? What was the secret of his invisible force? These are the questions vexing the mind of Manoj a classmate of Lappad. 

Well, all his queries came to end when a superman type "Pintu Bhaiya" appeared at once at the pre-determined spot for war. Everyone including Radhe became meek before him and served him with samosa and cold-drink. Pintu Bhaiya accepted that all condescendingly and warned that Lappad was his protege so no harm should be done to him in future.  The subjugable mind of Manoj now dreams of coming nearer to Pintu Bhaiya so that everyone feels an awe of him. Somehow he succeeds in winning the patronage of Pintu Bhaiya by joining his team of followers. Not much later, on the basis of his sycophancy talent he makes inroads to the innermost coterie circle of Pintu Bhaiya and now feels like becoming a primeminister of some soverign king. 

One day, while taking round of his dominated territory Pintu Bhaiya suddenly came across a damsel in her sweet sixteen and  his heart was blown away at the very first sight. The girl was Swati Sinha, a 11th class student. Now begins the phase of standing below in front of her balcony every now and then. He even helped one of his henchman to open a tea shop just on that spot so to make it a regular hangout. He take to waiting there for hours to get a glance of the beauty of his one-sided beloved girl. Manoj helps Pintu Bhaiya in his love endeavours towards Swati like a Hanuman. whosoever else dares to stand there is beaten up severely by Pintu Bhaiya. The girl has several friends including a number of boys. And no need to mention that ultimately this forcibly pursued one-way love story of Pintu Bhaiya comes to it's logical end. But you will surprise to learn that all the details of love story mentioned so far is not the theme of the play.

The essence of the play comes in the climax which is in fact a severest anti-climax that can be thought over by any layman like Manoj. And to the surprise of viewers this anti-climax does not come from the side of Swati Sinha, it is from Pintu Bhaiya from where comes the greatest anathema of Manoj's fancy imaginations. It was really horrific! Can a superhero can turn in such a persona and still the whole world is moving like the other day! Gosh! What a travesty! What in fact is surprising is the end scene and deliberately we are not going to divulge that here.

The whole play is a cocktail of script and acting. More than half of acting has already been done in the script itself and the actor had just to take it to a grand finesse! The colloquial dialogues take you to the innermost street of a far-flung stretch in Bihar. The storyline was just a Bihari' mode of the fairytale that lies on all's mouths while they are in their sweet 'teens' - a hero and a lovely youthful girl. What was stunning was the chasteness of 'Bihari-pana'! The more unbuilt you are the more it bangs!

Ghanshyam Lalsa made it possible to live all the characters  himself changing intermittently the whole gamut of body-language and voice-modulation! I already mentioned that the writer had already done half of the acting with his colloquialism and mohallewala storyline. This was Nihal Parasar who penned all the stuff and also directed the play. Kunal Sharma was on lights and music was by Harpreet. The other guys and gals behind the stage were Divyendu Saurabh, Sumitraj Yadav, Padmaja, Robin Patel, Kuldeep, Prerana and Mithil.

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Review by - Hemant Das 'Him'

Send your response to - editorbejodindia@gmail.com OR hemantdas2001@gmail.com

"Realistic Theatre & Academy" presented plays "Shadi ka dhamaka" and "Aarushi ko ek mauka to do" in Mumbai on 07.08.2022

She can handle more than just homemaking

Two small plays titled as "Shaadi Ka Dhamaka" and "Aarushi Ko Ek Mauka To Do!" were staged on 7 August, 2022 (Sunday) at 6 pm at Piroja Studio, Vile Parle,  Mumbai.

The storyline of the first play is like this. Tinku and Bulbul love each other, and things go smoothly for their marriage till Bulbul's wish to create a 'dhamaka' in their marriage. This wish makes the world upside down for them. Will they be able to get married? This can be watched in their hilarious play "Shaadi Ka Dhamaka".

Their second play was a social drama named "Aarushi Ko Ek Mauka To Do!". It is a story of a newly wedded homemaker lady who is determined to do something more than mere homemaking. She faces a lot of challenges and ultimately all discomfitures give way to her determination and courage and she wins. Both the presentations were written and directed by Vipul Patel and the actors were Harry, Snehal Kharat, Pramod Gohil, Nishanthi Evani, Bhavesh Yadav and Vipul Patel.

The audience enjoyed both the plays. They laughed loudly in comedy scenes of the first story "Shaadi Ka Dhamaka". The different characters played by the respective actors as "Tinku" by the artist Harry were liked. They could relate to the current social milieu as faced by a newly married lady in second story "Aarushi Ko Ek Mauka To Do!". There were certainly some scope of improvements at certain points in terms of acting and other forms of presentations.

Call/ Whatsapp: +91 9967309604
Realistic Theatre and Acting Academy
Venue: Piroja Studio, Vile Parle East, Mumbai, India.
Website: www.realisticacting.com
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Article - bejodindia.in team

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Craftsman performed the Hindi play "Sone ki chidiya" in Mumbai (Versova) on 21.8.2022

 Love-story of thieves 

"How was the taste of the mutton yesterday?" 

"So yummy!"

"O yeh! The persons staying in your adjacent room had also not paid the room rent for last three days  and we were able to provide you the meat ..."

"Kindly tell me how many kilograms you people weigh to that we may add that much of meat in our menu for the next day"

And everybody was rolling on the floor laughing.

Though the Azadpur village of this play is totally aloof from any of the grand democratic countries, it had not succeeded in saving itself from the most rampant feature of 'azadi' that is corruption. The whole lot of working class living in the precincts is fully immersed in corruption. Here "under the table" system rules the roost. All of the policemen, journalists, judges, doctors and businessmen are deeply involved in corruption.

Everyone gets very scared by the news that some  from a grand democratic country are scheduled to visit to their village. They know very well that politicians who have higher corruption capability can pose big problems to them. Now the question arises who will bell the cat. After a lot of deliberation it is decided that a journalist and a businessman can be sent to negotiate with the incumbent political leaders who were staying in a hotel. When these two men go to the hotel they think the two thieves as the politicians and try to gratify them by any means. Someone let his wife and other let his daughter meet these thieves.  The thieves enjoy the flirts of young women. Ultimately it is open that the two merry-making two men are just thieves and not politicians. And then what happens can best be learnt while watching the play.

The Hindi adaptation by Nirmal Roy is excellent and you can hardly guess that it is just an adaptation of a play by a foreign writer. The director Majee Ashok has put it on the stage deftly. All the actors were young but were able to show their mettle. One of the thieves who was trying to hide his face from the havildar who with his "aapko pahle bhi dekha hai kahin" dialogue had been troubling him consistently each time he came across. That thief gave superb delivery in terms of facial expressions and dialogues.  His girlfriend also charmed everyone with her flirts. The other theif also did justice with his role but the scene in which he is genuinely trying to save his (manly) modesty was superb. And there was her girlfriend who was adamant with her coquetry to outrage the modesty of the man in an all-out approach. She put it well.  The dancer man with lady's garments stunned everyone with his springiness in body but also with the presentation of feminine finicality in the body-movements. The bearded men in Muslim attire also gave a fantastic performance. All other male and female actors did justice to their characters. The names of the actors were Abhishek, Akhilesh, Aman, Ansh, Arpita, Bhavesh, Deepak, Jayam, Nisha, Pankaj, Vikash and Vinay.

So, it was really a meaningful and interesting performance.
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Review by- Hemant Das 'Him'
Send your response to- hemantdas2001@gmail.com OR editorbejodindia@gmail.com