Thanks to the innovative organizers of this play, I don’t have to think of a title for this post. ;-)
Organized by Nitin Das and the Sheikh brothers, Chana Chai Nukkad Natak featured two plays enacted wholly by kids from the Akanksha NGO (with some prodding from Nitin who sat at the back of the stage directing the kids and correcting their cute faux pases).
The first play was about a man saddled with an ailing mother, and two brothers - one mad, and the other given to drinking a lot. He wishes to get his mother to a good hospital, to get his mad brother married, and to gift his drinking brother a career. To that end, he forges fake banknotes. The man gives a fake 500 rupees note to his mother, who buys groceries (or ration as it is called out of habit in India, thanks to the Raj’s and then the government’s policy of rationing food). The shopkeeper later recognizes the fake and adulterates food in order to compensate for the loss. The adulterated ration is bought by a lady whose jobless husband eats it, and goes to an interview with a sick stomach. Rejected in the interview, he becomes a nakli doctor. Finally the drinking brother of the man who had forged the note falls ill and is killed by the fake medicine administered by the fake doctor. The play was aptly titled Nakli Duniya.
The second play was about a lad from Patna who apparently learns Karate by watching Mithun Chakraborty movies, comes first in a Karate championship, and with the prize money comes to Bombay to become a film actor. Since he does not know how to read and write, he is looted and chased away by everyone. Finally he meets Munna Bhai who ensures him a role in a movie. But on the sets, the lad is not able to read his dialogues. I forget the name of the play.
The plays had a makeshift workshop feel to them, the sort that theatre practices often have. Both the plays drew huge rounds of applause from the people, who seemed in no mood to hold back any praise that the performers deserved.
There was some scope for further practice in the second play. Nevertheless, even the blunders made by the kids were adorable and the effort made by Nitin Das to provide kids from Akanksha a stage at the Kala Ghoda Fest is commendable indeed to say the least.
