Bombay Talkies - A successful experiment

Presented by The Orchid Room Experiment, the first thing that struck me about the play is its name, 'Bombay Talkies'; it is not 'Mumbai Talkies'. In renaming Madras, Calcutta and Bombay, we have lost so much that is intangible! Chennai surely doesn't evoke the same degree of emotion as Madras does...

In this era where we get glued to reality television to get our daily dose of reality, (as if it is in short supply in our lives) we seldom have the courage to look at ourselves in the mirror. We are scared of the face the mirror conjures, for it is at odds with the one we put on for the world. As long as this dichotomy exists, monologues will be appreciated. A monologue is akin to a person thinking out loud, confronting himself in the mirror and laying open his soul. Bombay Talkies is eight monologues – “Uncensored moments of eight mumbaikars” - stitched together in a little more than 90 minutes.

Baby Dimple –

Played by Rasika, this is about a glorious past fading into an ordinary present and what looks like a bleak future. The once famous child actress, unable to come to terms with the changing ethos that conflicts with her self-professed values, begins to shed them as the lights dim.

Ideas –

In this monologue, the character played by Ishitta - A fountain of ideas - is caught between her own independence and the approval of her husband. As she talks of her painting – a maze of high rises and cable lines - she also reveals how the city is so dense and intricate…Beautifully imagined, this monologue is a simple and lovable sketch and my personal favorite.

Seven tiles –

Of lost childhoods and the agonies of growing up in an atmosphere of pseudo-conservatism, this is very powerfully enacted by Viraf. Where Kamasutra and Khajuraho are taboo, child sexual abuse is rampant. Beginning with humor, this one morphs slowly into an agonizing account of tarnished innocence.

No Tension –

Darshan is the typical agent and plays the character with such conviction that one begins to wonder if he has been an agent in his real life too. Loud, humorous, vulnerable, humane, vile and crude, he has the audience eating out of his hands.

Wonderland –

A cynical news reporter begins to introspect in this story. She slowly sees all around her, the genuine goodness of the human spirit as her travels in and around the city brings her into contact with people of different classes. The people she encounters defy all conventional conjectures…

Shobhit Patel –

This one takes the cake after Ideas. Namit is adorable as the classic Patel waiting for his American visa in a long queue. The moment forces him to examine his past with all its flaws. His friend’s – Manoj Bacardi – exploits with girls, the dandiya nights and his extended family’s yearning for all things back home, this is my second favorite.

Relationship Status –

The number of single mothers in urban India is on the rise. Financially independent, intelligent, assertive, the lives of these women is scrutinized harshly by a hypocritical society. The grind of daily lives without an emotional shoulder to rest on – Anahita does complete justice to this story.

The uprising –

I must confess that I could not understand the sense of gravity that Zafar in this last monologue seemed to evoke. The chorus chanting was also lost on me. Perhaps, a small explanation after the performance might have helped…

Kudos to the entire cast and Vikram Kapadia for a theatre experience that made us think, laugh and also question entrenched stereotypes. It is a beautiful sketch…go, catch it if you have a chance!

Mumbai - A city unparalleled in its magnanimity

"Magnanimity - kind and generous, especially to someone that you have defeated"

Mumbai, a city of dreams to most Indians, a city that has been catapulted onto the World imagination thanks to its slums, the crowds in its local trains, its monsoons, bollywood movies and of late, bomb blasts! A city whose resilience and fighting spirit finds mention often in different contexts - when I set foot in it, I felt the thrill that only adventure and excitement can provoke. 

"Nobody judges you here. You can do whatever you want!", my friend remarked when we were in Juhu beach. Her remark would, perhaps, best sum up the perception that an outsider would get as he lands in this city. Swarming with busy people, it is a city that deludes one into believing that the whole of humanity, especially in this particular mass of land, is constantly on the run - running in all directions imaginable! Indeed, if one just waits in a corner and starts observing people in the city, one can feel one's pulse start to throb.

11.45 PM, Friday night, Dadar railway station: We were in the Churchgate - Virar fast local. The train had not even come to a complete stop and people were trying to get in jostling each other. Such is the spirit of the city that only the strongest survive. Either the weak slowly reconcile themselves to a hopeless existence or simply give up too soon. The city is unforgiving and ruthless to people whose will is fragile. Sometimes, it is magnanimous and lets the weak eke out a living relegating them to footpaths and pavements, leaving them to the mercy of the natural elements during monsoons and just about extending a protecting arm. 

Pali Hill, Bandra (W) - home for the rich and the affluent. BMWs and Skodas glide across the lanes in all their splendor. A few kilometres away on the way to Mahim railway station, there is poverty in all its gruesome form - children crawling on pavements and mothers trying to make rotis. Families living under flyovers and men cleaning themselves with hardly any privacy - some sights that I would carry with me. 

Mumbai is a city that defies even the most fertile imagination. As another of my friends said, sometimes it just doesn't care. It tramples over people's souls and revels in delight even as they struggle. When everyday life is hard, it bestows in mankind a strange nature - one that is a little more caring. Thanks to this spirit, the people of the city have taken it upon themselves to resist what they perceive as the city's might. They think that if in some manner or the other, they don't care for each other, the beast that the city is, it shall swallow them up. Hence one comes across people who go out of their way to help strangers. 

It is an everyday battle here - between this beast and humanity and it is this battle that is intriguing to a stranger. He is drawn to it like a magnet and the clever beast, with its lure of promises, continuously devours humanity, slowly, but surely. Mumbai is a city waiting to explode but shall never explode; it is a tightrope walk in which the person treading the rope always appears to lose, but manages to triumph in the end! The man on the rope is either very shrewd in his manoeuvrings, but on the other hand, the rope might just be teasing him without his knowing!