Writer : Bobby Nagra Direction : Adhaar Khurana Cast : Abhinav Sharma, Ahsaas Channa, Garima Yajnik & Taaruk Raina
EXTERNAL AFFAIRS Review
EXTERNAL AFFAIRS, written by Bobby Nagra, directed by Adhaar Khurana, explores modern relationships shaped by loneliness, convenience, technology, transactional relationships, wokeness and emotional confusion.
Arjun and Insia meet at a therapy session and gradually bond over conversations about their past relationships. While Arjun is still unable to move on from his ex, Insia appears emotionally detached but slowly begins questioning her own feelings and desires. Their relationship goes through phases of attraction, uncertainty, distance, and emotional confusion, eventually leading them to attend the wedding of their respective exes, who marry each other. After drifting apart for a while, the two reunite once again at Arjun’s singing gig.
Taaruk Raina plays Arjun while Ahsaas Channa portrays Insia, the central pair whose relationship forms the core of the play. Abhinav Sharma and Garima Yajnik take on multiple roles throughout the narrative, adding energy and variety to the staging. Abhinav shifts between a gay participant in the therapy session, Arjun's friend, Arjun’s father, and Insia’s ex, while Garima portrays the therapist, Insia’s mother, Insia’s friend, and Arjun’s ex. Adhaar Khurana’s unexpected cameo appearance arrives as a pleasant surprise within the performance.
Another interesting aspect of the performance is the way the actors occasionally break the fourth wall mid-conversation to directly reveal what their characters are truly feeling, often contradicting the dialogue being spoken to the other person on stage. The ensemble uses this device to interact with the audience and pull them deeper into the emotional and comic rhythm of the narrative.
Bobby Nagra's writing captures the awkwardness, contradictions, and emotional overthinking of contemporary relationships with humour and honesty, while Adhaar Khurana's direction keeps the narrative fluid, engaging, and theatrically intimate.
The set remains extremely minimalistic yet effective, relying on the positioning of chairs, movement, and choreography to create shifting emotional and spatial dynamics within the intimate pentagonal performance space of Prithvi Theatre. It would be interesting to see how the same staging adapts itself within different theatre venues and spatial settings. The lighting design stays functional and restrained without overpowering the performances, while the ambient jazz music subtly enhances the contemporary aesthetic of the play. The modern costumes, along with the clever use of minimal costume pieces such as a scarf, jacket, spectacles, and a bag, help Abhinav Sharma and Garima Yajnik smoothly transition between multiple characters. A brief onstage fiasco during one such character switch becomes one of the evening's most hilarious moments.
Overall, the play is full of heart and laughter. It turns familiar relationship anxieties, emotional confusion, and everyday emotional chaos into humour that feels deeply relatable. The audience laughs at situations that would otherwise feel painful in real life, almost as if viewing emotional chaos from a third-person perspective. At its core, EXTERNAL AFFAIRS becomes a comedy of errors about modern relationships. The play especially resonates with millennial and Gen Z audiences dealing with information overload, uncertainty, and emotional instability in relationships.
Shashank Jadhav is a theatre practitioner, actor, writer, and director. He is the founder of Occipital Productions, under which he develops work across theatre and films.
