Review: Udhaar ka Pati
First there was a poster on the notice board that sent me into peals of uncontrollable laughter. I seriously considered suing the organizers for I almost choked on my laughter! And that’s when I got curious. Who is this Udhaar ka Pati?
Then as the D-Day approached everyone’s gtalk status messages began to change into “Everyone’s invited to Udhaar ka Pati, 9pm Friday IIM C auditorium!”. A week of in-house word of mouth publicity later, the famous Dramatics Cell of IIM Calcutta presented before us fortunate many who filled the auditorium choc a bloc that night, their adaptation of Vanmala Bhawalkar’s well known Hindi comedy of errors Udhaar ka Pati. Let me assure you right at the outset that the play could not but have been a grand success, given the formidable amount of hard work that goes into every Drams Cell production. The audience lustily cheered and laughed throughout the 90 odd minutes of this wonderfully directed laughathon.
The story revolved around the hare-brained schemes of Sheila Sharma (Rucha Naik), and her gossipy neighbor Shobha (Shruti Bhatnagar in an excellent cameo). It seems Sheila has been bragging about her simple Professor husband to a gossip in her village, who has promptly tattled to Sheila’s Grandpa (Shashank Kumar) So what’s the problem? Well, Sheila had eloped with the poor Professor Ashok Sharma (Salil Patil) much against her grandfather’s wishes, and he hasn’t spoken to them since. After hearing the stories of grandeur, Grandpa suddenly decided that its time to pay his “rich and handsome” Grandson-in-law a little visit. Thus begins the comedy of errors which finally leads Sheila to designate Ashok as the Maharaj (cook) while she gets Shobha’s Brother Naresh (Prashant Pareek) to play her husband for 2 hours. However, the best laid plans of mice, men and Sheila often go awry, and so 2 hours turns into a day, Ashok is mistaken for a Daaku and the Udhaar ka Pati seems to be pretty interested in Shiela herself!
Add to this a talkative servant (Raman Thakral), old-fashioned and kharoos Dadaji, and the most hare-brained Inspector(Ankit Katiyal) ever and we have a grand concoction. To add to the twists in the tale/ tail, we had the Director of the play Pranjali Agarwal herself in a short cameo playing hot Rita.
The performances were good, with Rucha Naik as Shiela not having to act much as she simply played herself. Ditto for Salil as Ashok and Shruti as Shobha. Raman Thakral put in a performance worthy of a thespian, switching from bumbling servant to …. well, that would reveal the plot. Shashank Kumar was unrecognizably perfect as Dadaji and Ankit Katiyal provided the laughs as Inspector. Prashant Pareek hammed it up more than a notch or two, but made up for it with his laments for “Ritaaaaaaaaaaaaa.” And Pranjali Agarwal was of course pretty much the “cry-baby” of the show.
The Production team put in a grand effort, with every thing going off without a hitch. Every detail was taken care of including the intermission music!
All in all a wonderful effort by the Dramatics Cell of IIM Calcutta. And now we know why they are THE Dramatics Cell.
Chandrima Das
December 29th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
Glad to see such a good review for the play!! Nothing excites a director more than a good review.
Hope everyone enjoyed the play as much as you did.
January 6th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
[...] the astounding successes of “Udhaar ka Pati” and “The Importance of Being Earnest” Drams cell presents its third and last [...]
May 4th, 2010 at 9:45 pm
This is a good write-up, I was wondering if I could use this article on my website, I will link it back to your website though. If this is a problem please let me know and I will take it down right away.