The play “Duvidha Urf @ Taj Mahal Ke Lutere”, which was presented by Prastav at the Shri Ram Centre this past week, begins in a ham-handed manner, has no middle and an abrupt ending. Cohesiveness and logic are the hallmarks of a play while it unfolds its content. But “Duvida” in the name of experiment ignores these established theatrical principles. At best it is a conglomeration of scenes borrowed from films and plays including a scene from Shakespeare’s “Othello” where Desdamona in the castle is sleeping in a bed and Othello demands her to tell him about the handkerchief he gave her lovingly and alleges her she gave it to Cassio. In rage, he smothers her. In “Duvidha” the scene is set upstage with the actress playing the role of Desdamona sleeping on a bare stage. Then there is a scene from film “Sholay” depicting Gabbar Singh (Amjad Khan) displaying his dreadful prowess to terrorise people. Then we watch the scene from “Mughal-e-Azam” where Emperor Akbar has decided to wage war against Prince Salim and Empress Jodha Bai willy-nilly hands over to him sword with trembling hands. These scenes are projected as caricature to evoke laughter. These scenes are loosely connected with the main theme of the play — robbers’ conspiracy to plunder Taj Mahal.
The play is directed by Raj Narayan Dixit who has rewritten Mrinal Pandey’s play on Taj Mahal. The intention of the director seems to be to caricaturise the prevailing decline in the field of culture and the malaise that is eating into the social fabric. The intention is good but good intentions alone cannot create a work of art. He also tries to comment that Hindi theatre and dramaturgy have not gone beyond the milestone created by Mohan Rakesh’s “Ashad Ka Ek Din”. His narrative has an amorphous character.
The play opens with performers rehearsing a scene from “Ashad Ka Ek Din”. There is Mallika, Kalidas and Vilom. Enters director, smoking, flaunting his superiority, he reprimands his actors and exits. The members of the cast find themselves in a quandary. The scene gives the impression that the play has structure of a drama-within-the drama. But abruptly a Holy man appears on the scene from nowhere, starts cursing actors for no fault of theirs. However, he gets pacified and gives the demoralized actors a kind of magic powder kept in two tiny boxes. He gives them instructions to go to Kanpur to his disciple Gaindalal Singh and his wife Sayara who will tell them the secret of the powder kept in the containers.
Once again the convoluted narrative takes another twist. Gaindalal and his wife have their own story to tell the visitors — once they were the artists in a Nautanki company and were in much demand. The Holy man was then one of the performers in the company. The audiences gradually deserted the company and it went bankrupt and the Holy man disappeared, hopping to make it big to rise in the social ladder. With the closure of the company the duo are facing hard life. They tell their visitors that their only daughter disappeared while they went to see a fair. The group of artists are frustrated, defeated and unable to make both ends meet. Young and ambitious as they are, they hope they will improve their life with the help of miraculous tiny boxes given by the Holy man with the help of the former Nautanki artists. The only possession they have is a laptop. All of a sudden they struck with the idea of plundering Taj Mahal and selling it in international underworld market. With the help of the laptop, the magic powder given by the Holy man they manage to bring Taj Mahal home by reducing its size.
Lo and behold, international gangsters have come to know about the theft of Taj Mahal. They are in the hot chase of Gaindalal Singh and his collaborators. Babbar accompanied by his gun-toting muscle-men raid Gaindalal Singh’s house, demanding Taj Mahal. A crafty Gaindalal manages to befool him. Another Don comes, who is more furious, dangerous and cunning than Babbar.
Not satisfied with his thriller type narrative, the director-writer embellishes his production with love between Simran and Raju. Towards the end it is disclosed that Simran is the lost daughter of Gaindalal Singh and Sayara and also she admits that Babbar is her step-brother. She also reveals that she is the secret agent from the intelligence department. Her story has several holes to be credible. Once again, the Holy man appears, now suited-booted. He starts sermonizing the actors and the audience that there is no need to wait endlessly like waiting for Godot, the enigmatic liberator of humanity, to bring “good days” but only people can bring real good days. The play ends on a happy note solemnising the marriage of Simran with Raju.
The best part of the production is the sequences where Nautanki dances and music are used which are lively and entertaining. The director’s treatment of seemingly dangerous underworld operators is effective to evoke laughter. The script needs pruning to focus on Taj Mahal as a symbol of elegance and beauty under threat from market forces. In the production under review this aspects gets blurred.
Rohit Tripathi, a senior actor, as Gaindalal Singh and Sonal as Sayara, the wife of Gaindalal Singh, make production lively with their dances and songs based on Nautanki style. Suman Shukla, who was popular on the amateur Hindi stage in Delhi in the 80s, tries to impart some sense in his sketchily written character. Rahul Gupta as Babbar make an impression on the audience with his creditable performance. Abhishek Malik in a variety of roles and Amodita Goswami as Simran and Mallika, are cast in complex roles who need to fine tune their performances.
