MAREEZ (Gujarati)
August 28, 2005.
Time: 2:30 pm.
Duration: 2 hrs. 15 mins with Interval.
Based on Raish Maniar's book titled Mareez: Astitva Ane Vyaktitva.
Director: Manoj Shah.

The play is a deep and serious exploration of the poetic impulse based on the life and work of Mareez, one of the most celebrated literary figures ever produced by Gujarati literature. He was a lover of alcohol and the writer of the most beautiful ghazals, a man who courted and muse that caught his passing fancy. A man who was reduced to selling his priceless poetic gems for a pittance to petty businessmen who passed it off as their own work. When you get a chance to know him better, you realize Mareez is in fact the classic fantasy on the theme of poetic improvisation!

ARTH DOSH (Hindi)
August 28, 2005.
Time: 7:30 pm.
Duration: 2 hrs with Interval
Originally written by Albert Camus.
Hindi translation: Dr. Sharad Chandra.
Director: Anoop Joshi 'Bunty'.
Cast: Tanaji Rao (an old servant), Neeti Shrivastava/Bhavna Singh (Martha), Swastika Chakrawarty (Mother) & others.

Martha, the play's heroine, runs a small motel in an inn along with her aging mother. But she abhors the unattractive and uncomfortable situation in which she is trapped, with all the many troubles that go with such a hard life. Her big dream is to get out of this boring and monotonous existence, to live on a lonely faraway golden beach and to enjoy in full all the pleasures that life has to offer. But since fulfilling this fantasy would require lots of money, Martha decides to acquire it. Thus she begins to kill travelers who stay at their motel. She does so by lacing their food and drink with a deadly poison. She even forces her mother to become her accomplice. The twist in the tale occurs when she kills her own brother John and whom she does not recognize as he had left home 20 years ago. ARTH DOSH despite its plot is hardly a play about a woman's greed. On the contrary, it is rather is a telling satire on the status of women in society.


FINAL SOLUTIONS (Hindi)
August 29, 2005.
Time: 7:30 pm.
Duration: 2 hrs with Interval.
Writer: Mahesh Dattani.
Hindi Adaptation: Shahid Anwar.
Director: Arvind Gaur.
Cast: Rashi Bunny (Daksha/Hardika), Sapna Khatana (Smita), Tarun Baba (Ramnik) & others.

Perhaps the first-ever Hindi adaptation of Mahesh Dattani's earliest and most frequently performed play, based on his own novel FINAL SOLUTIONS has a powerful contemporary resonance as it addresses an issue of utmost concern in our society- the issue of communalism. The play presents different shades of the communal attitude prevalent among Hindus and Muslims and attempts to underline the stereotypes and clich�s influencing the collective sensibility of one community against another. What distinguishes this work from other plays on the same subject is that it is neither sentimental in its appeal nor does it resort to over-simplification. It advances the objective candour of a social scientist while presenting a mosaic of diverse attitudes towards religious identity that often plunge our country into inhuman strife.