‘hum to tere aashiq hain’

the stage

the audience
the brand new theater in borivili is the probodhankar thakery auditorium with its enormous terrace from where u enter the auditorium. the terrace is fantastic to wait on and watch throngs of hard core marathi middle class families come out for their cultural evening out. the interior of the auditorium is all wood and air conditioned. very plush.

this week our cultural evening was when madhavi mami, mom and me went for ‘hum to tere aashiq hain’- a play that i was told is extremely funny and entertaining, having won loads of different highly respectable awards.

the play was formulaic froth about the travails of recently married couples with the usual one liners about the laziness of men or the cantankerousness of women, except in this case the man was hindu and girl muslim- the big twist being that the differences that emerge between them are not because of their differing faiths. and this rather conventional story was told in a school play idea of entertainment by inserting hindi film song interludes to entertain and a sutradhar who told the story while participating in it. very disappointing.

the cast was generally ok, except for this guy called jitendra joshi- who i had seen earlier in a play called ‘mukkampost bombilwadi’ where hitler loses his way as he is flying from japan to germany and lands in a coastal town called bombilwadi. that play was hilarious and joshi was fantastic. another place i have seen this guy is a show on zee marathi called ‘campus- a fair war’- a half hour piece where every week he profiles people and events in different colleges across maharashtra. with an absolutely great sense of timing, a chaplinesque physical humour and sensitive and intelligent approach, the show is extremely entertaing because of him. the best host of a how on tv right now- i think.