SARASWATI'S WAY Play Review

Akvarious' new play for children SARASWATI'S WAY brings forth in abundance the very elements that make theatre special. There is song, dance, drama combined and led by some inspired performances. This is a sweet and simple story of a young scholar called Akash (Pratyush Singh) who loves to crunch numbers. "I love maths!" is his slogan. He is his teacher's pet and the apple of his father's eye, and is all set to take the scholarship exam. His father, an impoverished Rajasthani farmer braves all odds to educate his son. He even joins his son in practising spoken English while struggling with his own broken English. But as luck would have it, Akash's father succumbs to a brief illness and the orphaned boy is now forced to quit school and toil in a stone quarry to pay back his father's debts. Soon Akash realizes that the owner of the quarry is cheating on the accounts and never intends to clear the debts.



Choosing to escape a lifetime of misery, Akash flees away in a train. After an eventful journey when he lands in Delhi, he is promptly apprehended by the police who mistake him for a member of the infamous 'station gang'. When the teen gangsters learn about this, they rescue Akash from the clutches of vigilant Inspector Sharma. They find Akash a place to live in the bookstall run by a friendly neighbourhood uncle. Although Akash is settling down well in the capital, he pines to go back to school to study his beloved Math. He appeals to Goddess Saraswati, the deity of knowledge. Will Akash be able to go 'Saraswati's Way'? The play tries to resolve this question. Presented in the Grips theatre format, wherein adults essay the roles of children - the play also employs elements of folk theatre rather engagingly. By weaving in Rajasthani folk song and dance as well as the Ramleela into the narrative, director Akarsh Khurana succeeds in adapting Monika Schroder's novel into a Hinglish play.

The cast members juggle their interchanging roles most effortlessly. But it is the young protagonist played by Pratyush Singh that stays with you - the young actor exudes an endearing vulnerability and adeptly exhibits the flashes of brilliance required of his character. A special mention must be made of the classroom songs and the Vedic Maths in the play. The multi-purpose, no-fuss stage design adds value to this smart production. Barring the affected DVD pirate in shiny pants and the teen gangster aspiring to be a hero with his pelvic thrusts that decelerate the tempo of the narrative suddenly, this is a nice play which entertains and educates. A jolly good break for children from gaming zones and amusement parks. And hopefully a big boost for Vedic Math tricks!

*Deepa Ranade is a film and theatre reviewer. She has been an entertainment journalist for over fifteen years.