Direction : Adhaar Khurana and Akarsh Khurana Writer : Akarsh Khurana & Vihaan Samat Cast : Dilshad Edibam, Garima Yajnik, Kashin Shetty, Lisha Bajaj, Priya Banerjee, Richa Kalra, Tahira Nath, Vihaan Samat and others
THIS IS U.S. Review
THIS IS U.S. is like a packet of crackers you have at tea time -- light, crunchy and when it's over, you wish there was more. Written by Akarsh Khurana and Vihaan Samat, it is a collection of three pieces strung together by the common theme of relationships between Indians and Americans.
The first one is a monologue (except for a small cameo from Garima Yajnik), performed by Samat, where he talks about his life as an Indian student in America. You could compare it to a stand-up comedy set, but it is somehow a lot more rhythmic in the way it is performed. Samat talks about rajma chawal and Mexican beans, an American girl relating her spiritual experiences in India during a party and being hit on by a 6 foot 3 inch-tall man in a grocery store, then making a run for it. The fish-out-of-water trope is common when you are talking about foreign travel. But what makes it different is that in all these situations, Samat is never an active participant. It's as if these interactions were one-sided, like lines thrown at him by various characters. And he, like us, a member of the audience, observes them, then stores them away in a corner of his mind for future use. This almost third-person perspective makes the monologue funnier.
In the second piece, we spend some time with a US consular officer (Richa Kalra) and an Indian couple (Dilshad Edibam and Kashin Shetty) as they give their interview for an American visa. Dilshad's character reminds you a little of Amitabh Bachchan from the movie English Vinglish, making the seemingly arrogant officer aware of her condescending attitude towards Indians with snarky remarks, while Kashin plays the stereotypical Indian tourist -- willing to lose every last shred of dignity to get his hands on that elusive document. Dilshad and Kashin share wonderful chemistry and the quick back and forth as they bicker, gets some loud laughs.
The third piece touches on a more serious topic than the two previous ones albeit with a light tone -- volunteers from the West (Garima Yajnik and Priya Banerjee) travelling to the country to work for the betterment of women in rural India. However, while the volunteers are in love with the idea of helping women from a Third World country, they are neither aware of the reality of these women's lives nor do they have practical solutions to the actual problems the women face. Along with them is a translator (Lisha Bajaj) whose witty translations and her banter with the village woman (Tahira Nath) create great comedy.
While jokes and witty one-liners abound throughout, all three skits seem to point at one thing -- the more the communities of the world intermingle, the more understanding we can become of one another as humans.
*Neha Shende is an avid theatre goer and enjoys watching old Bollywood movies in her free time.
