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Skilful plot
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"Shatranj ke mohre", a Hindi play, had all the ingredients to captivate the audience till the end
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Battles on the chessboard.
GEETA IS a sweet, your ideal, kind of young woman - innocent, beautiful, and sensitive: somebody who had such heavily regimented upbringing that she craves for such simple pleasures and experiences of life as, say, learning chess? And when she gets an opportunity to do that, she discovers her . "Why does an elephant (rook) move only vertically or horizontally, and why does a camel (bishop) move only diagonally?" she asks. The young man is perplexed. "Because that is its nature. You can't question that!" he answers evasively.
Suddenly it dawns on her that her curiosity and desire for the beauties and pleasures of nature and life are not condemnable but something to be indulged in. The Acharya, her guardian and mentor, had earlier in the same haveli damned the hosts on seeing a chessboard : "Instead of fighting the real battle of life, you people are engrossed in the fake battles of the chess board!". That very play thing now becomes a catalyst for the reversal of action in the play! Such ironies abound in this homely but titanic clash of two diametrically opposed world views.
Written in 1957 by P.L.Deshpande, Tujhe Ahe Tujpashi (What is yours is within you!) has lost none of its bite and freshness. Translated into Hindi as Shatranj Ke Mohre, the play has been a part of the IPTA (Indian People's Theatre Association), Bombay's repertoire for many decades now and has seen a change of three generations of actors and still going strong.
Humorist, playwright, screenplay writer, poet, one-act performer, director, singer, music critic, Purushottam Laxman Deshpande (1919-2000), popularly known as Pu La is a cultural icon for the Marathis. His brand of barbed, intelligent humour has become a part of literate Marathi psyche. Pu La knew the popular mind but it is the manner in which he grapples with wider issues and imbues his writing with deeper cultural undertones that is most interesting.
Kakaji Bakshi a gregarious, retired old man living in his decrepit haveli (his grandfather was a diwan) in the princely city of Indore, is a remnant of the almost defunct aristocratic class of the town, refined in its tastes and bold and open in the enjoyment of the pleasures of life. His wilful daughter, Usha has, however, become an ardent follower of Acharya Ram Bhajan, a wiry, stern Gandhian figure: spinning and wearing Khadi, assuming an austere lifestyle and food habits and following and propagating nishkama karma (action freed from desire).
The Acharya, in spite of (or, may be, because of - it is difficult to say) his renunciation and preachings about a life above carnal impulses is a highly sensorious person. Condemning people for the food they eat, for enjoying music, for loving flowers, wearing anything colourful and non-khadi, going to movies, eating ice-cream, or missing an appointment by a few seconds - anything you know as normal is fodder to the canon-fury of this irascible apostle of truth. In Indore, the killjoy unnerves everyone with his constant hectoring and overbearing superiority.
Kakaji's son Shyam, however is seduced by the Acharya's talk of transforming the values of life.
Assuming the role of a sage himself, he almost goes crazy, challenging and offering gratuitous advice to Usha and Acharya as well.
Winning over moha and that too when a damsel like Geeta is around, however, proves to be too much.
Kakaji, his old Munim (family clerk) and Satish, a young doctor, family friend and gallant admirer of Usha, are not taken up by the Acharya although they tolerate him. Having witnessed the hypocrisy of the Acharya, the sad plight of Geeta and the prospect of her own brother developing into another painful character, Usha takes things into her own hands. She drapes Geeta in a colourful sari and sends her to see a movie with Shyam.
From there, the play hurtles to its denouement, with Usha and Geeta, in particular, challenging the Acharya on his own turf -- values -- especially looking down on the woman as a mere object of vaasana(desire).
The Acharya wilts under the attack. He confesses that in our society, the path of renunciation is a moral trap, because you cannot go back to normal life and relationships even if you want. And so he had with vengeance persisted with it, making others feel miserable with his strictures. The confession however liberates him, and he walks out, sad yet confident, singing Tagore's Ekla Chalo Re (You can walk alone). It's time for some happy smiles, with Usha demurely accepting Dr. Satish and Shyam conceding that his heart has been hijacked by Gita.
Although it's essentially a devastating attack on the trivialised forms and practice of Gandhian philosophy, the skill with which Pu La lays out his plot, with perfectly apposed scenes and dialogues, and his genius for humour, pungent satire, variety of characterisation and extremely evocative poetry (Kakaji's descriptions of the jungle under a moonlit night and the graceful movements of wild animals, for instance), keeps the audience engaged to the end.
The three-act play is performed in a single haveli set, well designed by the redoubtable M.S.Sathu. Anjan Srivastava as the proud inheritor of a virile cultural tradition excels in a powerful performance. The young actress, Mohini as the upright and sensitive Geeta, Surendra Gupta as the emaciated Acharya and Bansi Thapar as the humble Munimji fitted their roles like a tee. Rakesh Bedi was his usual energetic self, pulling off repeated guffaws and applause from the audience with his trademark mannerisms and intonation, but he looked rather old for the role. Bharat Kapoor too as Dr.Satish looked rather old, but he also lacked in clarity of diction. As a result, the whole subtle import of his dialogues went abegging.
IPTA should probably have a look at the many rough edges (including the way the announcements are made) their productions are replete with. Ravindra Bharati is not a bad hall by any means, but somehow a large part of the dialogues were not clearly audible. And they had some seven awkwardly hanging mikes to do the job to add to the hollow reception and feed back!
The show was brought to Hyderabad by Star ventures for the Lions Club of Secunderabad Twin Cities to raise funds for their blood bank and service projects.
SUMANASPATI
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