“Dharma Travels”, presented by SHYO Theatre Group at New Delhi’s Alliance Francaise recently, focuses on the consequences of frenzied pursuit of fulfilment of cravings by man to rise higher in social and economic ladder. In this process, he loses his human essence and alienates himself from society. Redemption is possible if man liberates himself from his desire of materialistic gains . Written and directed by Sanjeev Johri, the play presents this ethical idea in a dramatic form. There is another strand to the narrative – an artist achieves excellence in her or his creation not merely by mastering his craft but by undergoing bottomless pain and sorrow .
The play opens in the premises of an ancient temple in an unidentified locale with a priest sitting near the entry gate of the temple. He distributes devotees flowers, symbolising blessing of the god. Then the action shifts to New York, showing Maya and Ravi discussing the sweet moments of their romantic life. With a view to stay with Maya, Ravi comes to New York but after sometime they experience the earlier warmth in their relationship is missing.
Meanwhile, Ravi tries his best to persuade Maya to accompany him to India where he wants to start religious tourism in a big way. She politely rejects his offer and prefers to remain in New York. Ravi realises, with a heavy heart, that romantic pleasure is a transitory phase.
Then again the action shifts to India. With his ideas of making huge profit through religious tourism, Ravi tries to enter the temple patronised and built by his ancestors, the priest physically throws him out of the premises of the temple. This is a severe jolt to him.
Ravi tells his father that the priest has thrown him out of the temple and insists that the services of the priest be terminated at once . His father refuses to oblige . The relationship between the father and the son has never been very close. When Ravi was a kid, his father was busy with attending his chronically ill mother and then Ravi left abroad for study.
Desperate to start his business project , Ravi is looking for partners and meets his old friend Kajal, a Kathak dancer, who is married to an ambitious corporate executive who has burning ambition to become CEO. With this objective Rahul, Kajal's husband, invests all his savings in the project. Both the friends and their partners put their heart and soul into the project. Now time has come to reward Rahul with the position of CEO of the company. Grand preparations are being made to celebrate the occasion but Ravi could not tolerate to be the second-in-command. He weaves a web of conspiracy.
Having achieved his ambition, Ravi gradually feels the pricks of his conscience. To redeem himself, he purges himself of lust and greed.
To illustrate his thesis, the playwright has created two protagonists – Ravi and Rahul. Ravi manages to transform himself but Rahul sinks deeper and deeper into the quagmire of greed and power.
Role of suffering
To focus on his another strand about artists’ quest to achieve perfection, the writer-director takes us to Kajal. In their earlier interaction, she tells Ravi that a senior critic praises technical mastery of her craft but treated her work devoid of soul. Now the same critic has lauded her dance performance as truly a work of art. She achieved aesthetic sublimity as a result of her suffering in life.
When a transformed Ravi goes to the temple, the priest allowsembraces him and dies, symbolising the culmination of his long wait for the arrival of a devotee with pure soul. Towards the end in an epilogue Ravi says that the journey of his remaining life will flow the way river water flows downstream spontaneously, effortlessly and rhythmically.
Sanjeev Johri is essentially an actor who has long association with Abhiyan under the direction of Rajinder Nath. As an aspiring playwright, this is his second venture. His play is structurally lose. The shifting of brief sequences from one locale to another breaks tempo of the production. He has projected two huge portraits of mythological gods on the upstage which are distracting the attention of the audience from the dramatic action.
At places, his brief scenes are marred by philosophical overtones. Johri as Ravi and Manu Dhingra as Rahul act admirably. A trained dancer, Rekha Johri has an impressive stage presence. She plays Kaajal with sensitivity. Percy Bilimoria as Bumboo, who runs a call girl racket in the garb of marriage bureau, offers some amusing moments. It is heartening to watch on the stage after a long time veteran actor Umesh Shrivastav as a lawyer. Though his character is sketchy, he manages to lend it some life.
