HI DOSTI TUTAYCHI NAAY, starring real-life couple Sumit Raghavan and Chinmayee Sumit, is a pleasant watch overall. Sumit and Chinmayee have both come together on stage after more than a decade and their chemistry, unsurprisingly, is quite charming. Written by Omkar Gokhale and directed by Suraj Parasnis, the play tells the story of a middle-aged couple who have been asked to take marriage counselling after the wife states that she wants a divorce.
Enter the marriage counsellors, a young married couple themselves, who try to get the older couple to talk about their lives, when and how they fell in love. The counsellors have had a track record of saving the marriages of all their clients till date. There is a background arc for the counsellors, too, perhaps to make their characters more rounded.
There are comedy scenes that portray the typical older-couple-vs-younger-couple trope. These parts feel slightly underwritten. The entire play shows just two counselling sessions before the older couple takes matters into their own hands. The counsellors bring levity to the story, but they don’t do anything transformative for the couple. Had these bits been more fleshed out, the resolution of the issues with the marriage would have seemed less simplistic.
The love story is where the play really shines. It is written well and Sumit and Chinmayee act it out beautifully. The story moves through nostalgic flashbacks – innocent school friendships and tender college romance – to the couple’s present selves where love has faded but is not completely lost. Effortlessly transitioning from a sarcastic husband to a tormented lover, from a cynical journalist to a raging romantic, Sumit truly is the “hero” of this piece.
Neeraj Shirvaikar’s set design makes for playful flashbacks and it’s great to see Sumit’s colourful kurtas and Chinmayee’s pretty cotton and silk sarees.
This play might falter in some parts, but its warmth, nostalgia and the crackling chemistry between the leads make it difficult not to be completely charmed.
*Neha Shende is an avid theatre-goer and enjoys watching old Bollywood movies in her free time.
