‘The
Kachra Tales’, a play about a sweeper-boy, impresses with its humorous dialogues, dramatic acting, and flamboyant settings
Photo: Kanda (left) and Kachra
By
Shevlin Sebastian
A
group of boys and girls hold on to a stick above their heads for dear
life. They are swinging from side to side. All of them are wearing
black shirts and loose trousers. A couple of girls have bulbous red
noses. One of the boys says, 'Mumbai Central'. It takes some time to
realise that they are inside a suburban train in Mumbai. Suddenly,
they all rush out of the train.
One
is talking on the phone. Another is running around in circles. One
wears outsize spectacles and then… boom … they all land on
the floor, looking lifeless. “We just wanted to show the chaos of
Mumbai,” says director Jaimini Pathak. A boy appears on the stage
with a broom and sweeps the crowd off the stage. And that is how
Kachra, the sweeper boy, is introduced. He is wearing a white vest
and brown shorts.
Kachra’s
mother wants him to study, but he wants to become a top-class
sweeper. “I want to clean up the whole world,” says Kachra.
“Otherwise, the earth will be a filthy place.” Soon, his friend
Kanda appears. They talk about their teacher, Sikandar Babu. At the
side, Sikander is trying to teach a group of bored students. Says the
teacher to a student: “You are sprouting nonsense, you little
blot.”
Meanwhile,
Kanda says, “I want to become like Salman [Khan].” He writes a
poem in praise of the Bollywood actress Rukmini Kiran Shah, who is
coming to town. They go over to the set and are blocked by the
watchman and the make-up artist. Suddenly, Rukmini zooms in wearing
a green top and pink skirt. But somehow, the boys manage to slip in.
Soon, there is a fight between hero Tabrez Anand and Rukmini. They
chase each other. There is a melee and, in the confusion, Kachra and
Kanda are transported to another world.
This
is a new kingdom where the boys meet two men who represent an ostrich
and crab. Kachra says, “Who are you?” And the pair break out into
a wonderful song, with a couple of Bengali sentences thrown in:
Who
are we?
Ami
Ke, Tumi Ke? (Who am I? Who are you?)
Jaani
Na, Jaano Na. (I don’t know. You don’t know.)
“The
play got its inspiration from the nonsense verse of Sukumar Ray,
Lewis Carroll, Ogden Nash, and Edward Lear,” says Pathak. “In
fact, the ‘who are we’ song was a tribute to Sukumar Ray’s
‘Mish Mash’.” The script was written, not surprisingly, by a
Bengali: Nayantara Roy.
The
ostrich and the crab tell the boys that the king is cruel and
heartless. He does not allow the people to own houses and
possessions. “They tell the boys that if they want to escape, they
would have to kill the king,” says Anand Ramprasad, of ‘Working
Title’, a Mumbai-based theatre company, which produced the play.
Many
incidents and songs take place, and finally the Queen realises that
her husband had killed her father, the old king. She accosts the
young king, is about to kill him and at the last moment spares his
life and sends him away, to be guarded at all times in a remote area. In
between Kachra says, “Is this reality or a dream?”
Soon,
Kachra’s mother is awakening him. It seems to be a dream. He rushes
to meet Kanda who also confirmed that he had the same vision.
Many
youngsters attended the play, named, ‘The Kachra Tales’. One of them was Joseph Monis, a Class
11 student. “When I was told it was a play about a young cleaning
boy I thought it would be a depressing story, but it turned out to be
wonderful,” says Joseph. “I especially enjoyed the weird
dialogues. The acting was great.”
Says
Sneha Rita, a Class 6 student, “It was the funniest play I have
seen in my entire life. I loved everything about it.”
(The New Indian Express, Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram)
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