Into a women’s soul

Seven monologues written by men, will examine female desires and hopes

The third edition of Manhar Gadhia Production’s Saat Teri Ekvis (7x3=21), an anthology of seven monologues in Gujarati, will debut in Hindi this week. Each performance in the mix deals with the desires and hopes of women, prompting the hashtagged moniker #Womanologues. Earlier editions assembled a trio of collaborators — a writer, a director and an actor — for each piece (hence the title). This time around, the charismatic Pratik Gandhi sets aside acting duties to direct the complete set. This venture marks his first directorial outing. “Each monologue brings notice to a woman’s soul with a new perspective,” he says.

Progressive stance

The seven fifteen-minute-long plays are written by a sextet of male writers and performed by seven female actors. The Gujarati version premiered last year (the first season opened in 2013). The irony of men authoring stories of women is not lost on Gandhi, although he observes, “Surprisingly, though we considered material written by women, the approach taken by men has been much more forthright.” For instance, in Rahul Patel’s Toral Joshi Tinder (performed by Tusharika Rajguru), the eponymous protagonist is refreshingly candid about the importance of ascertaining sexual compatibility with life partners beforehand. This raised hackles with straight-laced audiences, and an actor even refused to perform the piece.

“While they are exposed to progressive themes in other languages, Gujarati fare should remain pristine,” says Gandhi, of the conservative attitudes he encounters. To restore parity perhaps, he’s planning a similar series written by women on men, called

#Manologues .

The stories in

#Womanologues encompass a variety of themes. Ketan Mistry’s Madhubala (Bhamini Gandhi) takes us beyond the mystique and allure of the 1950s film star. In Patel’s second piece, Shruti Sharma Single Hai (Veronica Gautam), a woman’s divorce takes place on the same day she got married, and she celebrates this anniversary of inadvertent freedom in bridal wear. Sanjay Trivedi’s

Bai Bhai (Binda Rawal) takes us into the intrepid world of a female bootlegger in the underbelly of Ahmedabad. In making the transition to Hindi, the contexts of these universal tales have been changed, from, say, Gujarati households to Hindi-speaking ones, with some exceptions like Trivedi’s piece, which Gandhi felt couldn’t be uprooted from the culture of prohibition so unique to Gujarat (the other ‘dry states’ in the country being Mizoram, Nagaland and Lakshwadeep, where Hindi is not the lingua franca). Similarly, a piece like

Madhubala , which always felt at odds in Gujarati, thrives in a new Hindustani translation by Akhlaque Khan that restores the actress to a more authentic setting. Most of the pieces have been created in the mien of an actor speaking directly to the audience or, in theatre parlance, ‘breaking the fourth wall’. However, these have been deliberate choices for Gandhi in keeping with a character’s integrity. “In Gujarati theatre, this is usually done in a very cavalier fashion. Talking to the audience is a means to register jokes. Here, we take pains to establish ‘who’ the actor is talking to,” explains the director.

Multilingual approach

One of Gandhi’s feats as a young veteran of the stage has been performing Ishan Doshi’s Mohan’s Masala , a monologue on the man behind the Mahatma, in three different languages — English, Gujarati or Hindi — on the same day, and on several occasions. He describes how he pulls this off, “It is certainly very challenging and enriching for an actor. Although the construction of a sentence differs from one tongue to another, each language also has its unique grammar of performance, that is both verbal and gestural. Discovering this was momentous for me.” This is above and beyond the dictates of essaying a character, and results in markedly different interchanges with audiences watching in different languages. Gandhi’s unique experience will be replicated, in part, by each of his actors, slated to perform their monologues in both Hindi and Gujarati in back-to-back shows of #Womanologues and Saat Teri Ekvis .

#Womanologues will be performed this evening at 6 p.m. and on June 14 at 9 p.m at Prithvi Theatre, Juhu. More details at bookmyshow.com