DAY 11: 15th Jan 2013
Subtitles are a must for non-English productions. Even Hindi plays must come with subtitles to aid people who do not know the language. There are many foreign participants at the festival to merit this. And if at all subtitles are not present for whatever reason, it should be clearly mentioned in the schedule pamphlet so that people avoid wasting money on tickets. Come on NSD, these are the basics of festival curation!
Yaar Banaa Buddy Bang on… Dhamaal Tigdi
Script & Direction: Nadira Zaheer Babbar (Ekjute Theatre Group, Mumbai)
What was this play about? Was it about relationships and friendship? Was it a personal tale of three friends who try hard to recreate their old days of fun and freedom? Was it a tale of skewed perspectives when it comes to relations and understanding fellow humans? Or was it a desire to shun unnaturalness and be ‘yourself’ (read Indian)? I am utterly confused.
Such writing is akin to ill-informed or mis-analysed notions of human behaviour. The idea that the so-called Indian-ness is lost when one becomes an art appreciator is ridiculous. And the ability to break into whole-hearted laughter is the sign of being ‘Indian’ is even more misplaced. This is the kind of moral bias that we must shun in order to accept humanity as one. We are all individuals and there is no black and white. Passing judgement on human emotions is the worst variety of violence.
Yashpal Sharma has immaculate timing on stage.
ARTVIEW 
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