Well-known playwrights have been performed on stage with great enthusiasm and applause every now and then, but a very few short stories and its characters have been put to life in a seamless thread of extraordinaire brilliance and pleasure. This was what each single entity sitting at Sri Ram Centre in Delhi was going through watching the play ‘Koobar Aur Kaaki’ presented by The Films and Theatre Society. Interestingly, the play does not speak the mind and soul of just one playwright; instead, it intricately interweaves two different short stories put forth by the best Hindi storytellers, Munshi Premchand and Dharamveer Bharati; making each story breathe life into another.
Where, Premchand’s ‘Budhi Kaaki’ is a story of an old woman who is rendered useless by her family finds solace only in eating good food. Dharamveer Bharti’s Gulki Bano is about a woman being ousted by her husband for bearing a dead child and sent to her village, where she is fighting a silent battle for her survival. But, the two stories merge into one another like two rivers without making the audience realize their separate entity.
As the curtains swiftly move apart, the audience becomes a spectator to the settings of a village in early 20th century with its pivotal characters as females. It’s through the narrator and the mingling of the characters that one finds the connection between the two plots. As the characters from both the plots interact with each other, the stories of both the protagonists’ unfold making it easy to understand. The director, Atul Satya Koushik, intelligently weaves the two stories together with the help of the narrator who now and then comments on the plight of the protagonists’ making the audience understand the link between the two plots. Some great settings and brilliant lighting creates the mood of the play, making it a visual treat for the audience.
Though these stories are set in the early 20th century, but the theme still seems to find foot in the contemporary world. Where women are still suppressed and their lives and feelings are governed by the male counterparts or at times by the cunning relatives. Where on one hand, Kaaki epitomizes the old generation being disregarded by the new one, Gulki bano finds her place in every woman’s heart for being the eternal forgiver. Satti, on the other hand, comes forth as an independent woman who stands tall against all the wrong doings. Gegha bua and Rupa brings forth the eternal shrewdness to grind their axe. It is these very characters who mirror our feelings, desires making us empathise with the protagonists.
The play depicts the various desires of human beings, from complex desires to be well-off or to be loved, to the very simple desire to eat sumptuous food. It’s these desires that make us act in some way or the other making us vulnerable and insatiable. It brings out the human pathos and makes you understand the complexities of life and relationship. The play speaks volume about the passion and the hard work the actors have put in, with each scene being enacted beautifully on the stage.
Though, both the stories run parallel but Premchand’s ‘Budhi Kaaki’ steals the limelight with its heart wrenching story and impeccable performances. Where Gulki beautifully portrays the docile woman struggling to live her life, Kaaki portrayed by Parul Sachdeva is the showstopper making everyone laugh at her one-liners and then moving them to tears with some phenomenal acting skills. The way she enters the stage with quivering hands and legs letting everyone empathise with her old age and then, in an instant she snaps into this young woman letting everyone gasp in awe of her. With some great music by the Brahmanaad group and brilliant lyrics and extraordinary performances by each and every actor, the play beautifully brings a new element into the stories by an immaculate juxtaposition with newer interpretations though maintaining the sanctity of the individual stories.