Jugaad without joy
DIWAN SINGH BAJELI
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Rajesh Thipathi’s “Jugaad” fails to impress.
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IMMATURE A scene from the play.
Male disguising as female and a cunning and rogue servant are stereotype characters in a conventional comedy. Mask group, which presented Rajesh Thipathi’s “Jugaad” this past week at Poorva Sanskritik Kendra, depends too much on these stereotypes to evoke laughter. This is what makes the presentation a bit stale. It fails to create effective comic situations and lacks in plot complexity. Of course, there are moments of laughter which are generally created by vulgar situations. Romantic longings could have been amusing if intrigues could have been invented.
Directed by Dinesh Ahlawat, “Jugaad” seeks to comment on the plight of bachelors in a metropolitan city to get house on rent. Even in big cities the feudal ideas continue to be practised. Ravi, who hails from a village, finds a job in a city but he is not able to have a suitable accommodation because he is a bachelor. To make things more complicated his servant too is a bachelor. Disgusted with search for shelter, he resorts to falsehood. He tells the owner of the house that he is married and his wife is in his village who would join him within a month. As the time of one month comes to a close, Ravi is in trouble. What can he do now? How he can face the landlady?
Meanwhile, Ishwar Preet lands in Ravi’s house to make it big in the city as a TV actor because in his village his role as Sita has been immensely popular. Suddenly an idea strikes Ravi. He persuades Ishwar to disguise himself as his wife. The house owner is befooled. But Ravi loses his peace of mind; terrified to be exposed by his greedy and unfaithful servant who has to be bribed whenever a crisis takes place.
Superficial
Several visitors continue to drop in at Ravi’s rented house, including his father, forcing him to accept them as his guests. These scenes are facile and the characters are not credible. To make the play more significant the playwright should have included tenant’s humiliating efforts to get a police clearance certificate before getting a rented house. The clearance from the police is a must these days. The interactions between the police and Ravi could have been presented in a highly hilarious manner. Exploiting the comedy of policeman always evokes laughter.
Dinesh was a student of the late Panchnan Pathak, a theatre activist committed to social cause. But in this comedy Dinesh has tried little to expose and ridicule economic dichotomy in a city where a large number of people have no place to live. He is doing theatre regularly and he has a group that loves to do theatre. He should invest his productions with social concerns rather than depend on vulgarity to attract the audience.
Roshan Preet who disguises himself as the wife of Ravi and Dilbagh Singh, a self-styled film producer, infatuated by Ravi’s ‘wife’ impressed the audience. Arjun Rawat as Ravi and Dinesh Sharma as Charkha, the crafty and greedy servant of Ravi, manage to amuse the audience.
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