The title of the play, Mohan’s Masala , refers not to a spice-making enterprise or a famous brand of panch puran but to the condiments of life itself. They refer to the untold ingredients that make a person who they are.
In this case, Mohan is Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, and the play seeks to specifically uncover the redolent essences of his childhood. It’s a chapter usually glossed over in most biographical tellings of the Mahatma’s life, but which must have contributed immeasurably to the marrow of the convictions that became a nation’s lifeblood.
Directed by Manoj Shah, it features a single actor, Pratik Gandhi, on a sparse stage embellished only by illustrations by Atul Dodiya as a piquant backdrop for a late 19th -century piece.
This evening, the play will be performed for the first time in three languages — English, Hindi and Gujarati — on the same stage in one day. The Gujarati version, Mohan no Masalo , has contributed to the bulk of the play’s performances since it opened in March 2015.
By happy chance or design, June 10 is the day the Mahatma was called to the British Bar and enrolled in the South African High Court, the first step in a tumultuous career. The first two decades of his life hadn’t exactly been uneventful: an early marriage to Kasturba at age 13, the loss of both parents, a stint at Bhavnagar’s Samaldas College. Yet, the young Mahatma has often been delivered to us as the up-and-coming Indian barrister eager to make his mark on foreign soil. Shyam Benegal’s The Making of the Mahatma , from the book by Fatima Meer, steers this young man (an exquisite turn by Rajit Kapur) steadily towards an uncertain enlightenment. The infamous incident of him being thrown out of a first-class compartment at Pietermaritzburg because it was reserved for whites is often represented as one of the earliest formative incidents of his life. He was just 24 years old then. This is where Mohan’s Masala effectively ends its spiel.
To successfully capture the nuances of a childhood thrust into adulthood, Shah was on the lookout for a young voice with a crystallised world view. Ishan Doshi, who had worked as a child actor in one of Shah’s productions, and is now 21, had written a blog about his stint as ‘the boy behind the counter’ at the Prithvi Theatre bookshop. full of rich impressions of a bustling cultural hub. Shah was able to coax out of the young writer his first full-length script for the stage.
“It took all of six months, and I devoured every piece of writing on Gandhi that I could find,” says Doshi. Material focused on Gandhi’s childhood was rather thin and yet, from various accounts, in many languages, Doshi was able to piece together a factual tapestry in which his Mohan is fashioned as an everyman sort.
Doshi has cottoned on to a theme; his next work is focused on the origins of another great soul, Che Guevara. An early draft was translated by Satya Mehta into Gujarati, before the versions in English (Doshi’s original text) and Hindi (translated by old hand Mihir Bhuta) began to be performed.
Going back a long way
Shah’s association with his lead actor Pratik Gandhi goes back even further. Gandhi played the titular part in Master Madame , a chaotic ensemble piece based on the Sanskrit drama Bhagavadajjukam . He’s also demonstrated ample thespian cred in Hu Chandrakant Bakshi , a monologue based on the prolific Gujarati writer. In Hindi, he recently performed in Sunil Shanbag’s production for Aadyam, Mere Piya Gaye Rangoon . This is an actor who can carry entire productions on his shoulders, with growing name recall amongst theatre aficionados.
For Mohan’s Masala , the consummate performer takes the icon from infancy to adolescence and beyond. He does this without having to borrow references from the pantheon of actors who have enacted the Mahatma, almost always as a dhoti-wearing strident figure. “In the end, it is his ordinariness that shines through more than anything else,” says Gandhi. One of his best experiences while enacting this role was a special show at Ahmedabad’s Sabarmati Jail, for 500 inmates, many of whom were moist-eyed by the end of his act. In this first ever three-language three-peat, Gandhi will attempt to cross yet another frontier.
Mohan’s Masalawill be staged at 9 p.m., Prithvi Theatre, Juhu. Tickets: Rs. 300 bookmyshow.com
The writer is a playwright and stage critic
