To give you a brief history, Broken Images is based on Odakalu Bimba, a hugely popular Kannada play written by Girish Karnad. The play opened in March 2005 as Ranga Shankara’s first production. It was directed by Girish Karnad and enacted in two languages at that time: Kannada, with Arundhati Nag as lead actor, and English (The Heap of Broken Images), with Arundhati Raja as lead actor. The play was later translated to Hindi (Bikhre Bimb), also enacted by Arundhati Nag.

Bikhre Bimb in its various avatars has seen scores of shows in Bangalore over the years, received awards and rave reviews.

Given the play’s renown in Bangalore’s theatre circuit, Broken Images had a lot to live up to. 

Did it deliver? My answer is a resounding Yes!

Broken Images retains the play in more on less original form tweaking only the peripherals. Manjula Nayak, Kannada short-story writer, becomes Manjula Sharma, Hindi short-story writer. The geography is now Gurgaon and Kamla Nagar instead of localities in Bangalore (because of which the gag about Koramangala had to be sadly sacrificed). Manjula’s sari (forgive me for being trivial ) is orange rather than green.

The progression of the play – Manjula’s TV interview, her volatile emotional states, and the sequence of events and revelations that follow – is the same as in the original.

The set in this production gives Manjula more options for sitting – other than the TV studio table and chair, there’s a leather couch and a seat below the TV set, on which Manjula parks herself towards the end. The closing sequence in which the "broken" of the title takes literal shape, is very interestingly done. 

A major draw of the play is the star playing its lead role – Shabana Azmi. I hold Arundhati Nag’s performance in Bikhre Bimb in the highest esteem and wondered if I could like anyone else playing Manjula. I need not have had any such qualms – Shabana Azmi is marvellous. Her Manjula seems like a different creature, more subdued than Arundhati Nag’s. Where Arundhati’s Manjula screams her surprise and cackles over her husband’s silliness and sighs like you can hear her heart break, Shabana’s Manjula raises her voice only a notch, laughs and cries with the restraint of a woman not given to extravagant displays of emotion. And yet, both are so real – it is fascinating that the same character can get fleshed out in unique ways by two extremely talented actors.

For more on the play, read my notes on Bikhre Bimb. I think this play is most effective if you have no prior knowledge of the plot – so won’t say more except to urge you to go watch it!

Girish Karnad’s Bikhre Bimb

So, I have a whole range of good commentary on the play to link to – but most of the reviews reveal the plot. If you haven’t seen the play yet, I would urge you to watch it without knowing the story beforehand.

After you’ve done watching the play, do come back and read through these articles:

From ‘Spaniard In The Works’: The author of this well-written piece is not a fan of theatre in general but is pleasantly surprised by Bikhre Bimb.

Mumbai Theatre Guide Review: Written by the editor of Mumbai Theatre Guide, this article touches upon interesting details within the play such as the lighting and the joke about theory-based exams.

Time Out Mumbai: More background info than review, but worth a read. Among other things, it includes an answer to the question why Karnad’s protagonist is a woman and not a man.

Rangashankara

The hi-tech props for Bikhre Bimb made me stop in the tracks. Behind a table and chair near the edge of the stage, dozens of TV sets were arranged in the background. A large TV set was suspended above.

When Arundhati Nag walked onto the stage, apparently talking to a cameraman in the direction of the audience, we almost didn’t realize that the play had begun. [In fact, a person in the audience responded to her greeting, which was part of the act, with a loud ‘Good evening’, briefly unsettling the actress.]

What followed is a one-actor (two-actor? I won’t explain that ambiguity – watch it!) show that took us you through a web of emotions, subjects and messy relationships.

Arundhati Nag plays the role of Manjula Nayak, an author who is invited to the TV studio for an interview. The interview spends good time on the subject of regional languages versus English, and you expect that this is what the play is about. But that turns out to be a red herring and the play takes a twist soon.

[A cautionary note for 'big-chunkers': if you want Action, you might get restless in this play. This one is all about the details.]

Manjula Nayak’s character is very layered. She is rather a villain, yet you cannot help sympathize with her. It is to the playwright (Girish Karnad)’s credit that he injects realness not just into this character but also the characters that never make a physical appearance on stage – the husband and the sister.

The sudden shifts in Manjula’s emotional state are, again, very well-written. She is chatty and sharing confidences one moment, then with the next thing said to her, back she goes to being angry and suspicious.

Arundhati Nag carries this extremely challenging role with finesse. When the play was over, the audience gave her a standing ovation of the kind I have not witnessed for any other play.

I’ve seen this play twice. There is a jaw-dropping moment towards the start of the play. The second time, I wanted to watch closely what goes on before that moment. The play felt as good the second time round.

Bikhre Bimb is a serious play in its broad theme and yet funny in its minutiae. You’ll find yourself chuckling over and repeating to others, its quips about the state of education in English literature, Indian husbands, and Bollywood’s prepossession with the "guy in the mirror". Even the final nail in the coffin, Manjula’s kitchen table remark, has a touch of the comic about it.

Another aspect worth mentioning is the language. The Hindi is more polished than what we normally hear in movies/theatre or in conversation. Nowadays, chaste Hindi seems to be spoken only in mockery; I loved the fact that Bikhre Bimb uses it without feeling the need to explain why.

The exaggerated and magnified simplicity and humility of Rajkumar were driven home one too many times, making the one-act play tedious in the protagonist’s attempt to defend his life and its meaning.

The audience, however, were simply delighted — hanging onto every joke, lapping it up and bursting into peals of laughter at the slightest pretext, right till the end.

If the audience was delighted, then who was it that found the play tedious? The Hindu does not say.

I can’t find any more old newspaper reviews of this play. Maybe there’ll be a few after the Sep-09 run in Bangalore. I’ll return to update this section later, if so.

Rajkumar spends those 70mins of the play narrating anecdotes from his unspectacular life to the audience.

Doesn’t sound too exciting does it? And yet, it’s a compelling, eminently satisfying play.

Munish Sharma, the actor who plays Rajkumar, has an easy charm and perfect comic timing, making Rajkumar a very likeable character. He describes with gusto his small world, full of people like a pseudo-intellectual poet uncle and a mother with a love for action films – and you’re completely drawn in.

The props are an interesting assortment too: old boots used as flowerpots, blackboard and a bicycle, to name a few. Then there’s a mystifying action that Rajkumar keeps repeating during the play;  that gets nicely tied in with the theme of the play towards the end.

If there’s one thing that didn’t work too well, it was the translation. (“Five Grains Of Sugar” was originally written in Hindi as “Shakkar Ke Paanch Daane”, later translated to English by Arshia Sattar.) Not that the translation’s shoddy, in fact it’s a pretty well-done job. It’s just that the play has a very Hindi feel to it, it doesn’t sound as natural in English.

Performances In Sep ‘09

This play is coming to Bangalore this month; it will be staged at Grasshopper, Kyra and Rangashankara. Go for it!

Grasshopper: 24th Sep 09 (8 PM)
Call 9845452646 for details.

Kyra: 25th Sep 09 (7.30PM)
Call 080-43419999 for details.

Ranga Shankara: 26th and 27th Sep 09 (3:30PM and 7:30PM)
Call 9845602265 for details.

Note – If you sit in the first row, be prepared to take a joke or two at your own expense!