Her theatre movement addresses and empathises with the elderly or those suffering from various afflictions such as thalassemia, Alzheimer’s disease and multiple sclerosis.

Sarita Vohra, who has been writing, directing and producing plays for three decades, says her passion for theatre was ignited in 1988 when she was living in a colonial bungalow in Mumbai. “I started organising informal theatre in my living roo m and that is how the Living Room Theatre began. I started children’s theatre in my house that could accommodate just 150 people. The dining room was converted into a stage and the plays were on issues such as general elections, Punjab during the State’s turbulence period and the state of affairs in Kashmir.”

Her actors were children from the Bohra Muslim community. “The kids came from conservative families. I even coaxed their burqa-clad mothers to act in my plays. When I was leaving Mumbai after my husband passed away, these women were in tears.”

To transcend linguistic barriers, Sarita crafts her plays in an amalgamation of Hindi, English, Urdu and even Punjabi.

After Mumbai, her next destination was Ahmedabad where she staged her first play in 1997. “Geeta Behn from Ahmedabad motivated me to do plays with children from Gujarat. For five years, I kept shuttling between Bombay and Ahmedabad where I worked with children from every school of that city.”

After re-settling in Delhi in 2000, Sarita was was approached by HelpAge India to do a show dealing with problems associated with aging. She managed to pull out a comic play about a motley group of senior citizens.

“It was appreciated so much by the Alzheimer’s Society that it wanted me to incorporate some lines on creating awareness on the disease. Then Thalassemia Society asked me to do one full play on them. So, on World Thalassemia Day last year, I did a play ‘Mr. and Mrs. Nayyar’. Then I did a play on multiple sclerosis. I interviewed people suffering from these diseases to understand their psychological problems.”

Even though her plays were supporting causes that couldn’t be taken lightly, she chose to weave together humorous and light-hearted stories. “I think this is the best way to reach out to the audience. If the play is theoretical then the audience would easily get bored. So I make my plays simpler. To support the cause of the elderly people, I made Mallaika. Sherraffat@oldagehome.com. The name was meant for creating curiosity among theatre-loving people. Based on a real life story of my neighbour, the play was of a Sikh couple who run an old age home. But their NRI son resents the fact that the old age home is being run on their property.”

Sarita’s last play “Urban Tadka” explored the facets of life in a metro through conversations.

After honing her skills in theatre under the tutelage of Sheila Bhatia at Delhi Art Theatre, Sarita started acting in plays but it was while teaching in Bombay’ St. Ann’s Fort that she really got a chance to write and direct plays. “It was an unusual school as the principal encouraged me to write my own script and use theatre as a medium to teach. She told me not to restrict children in classrooms but teach them geography, history and literature through dramatics.”

Sarita is planning to re-direct “Oliver” which like the Charles Dickens’ book will be on street children.

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