No Laughing Matter

It’s a story that writer and director (and erstwhile venture capitalist) Deepak Dhamija,27,says hits out at the new Indian pre-occupation with laughter. “From Bollywood films to news television,we’re focusing on laughter as medicine. It’s perhaps a way to avoid serious truths which we cannot solve. Like corruption,when we can’t tackle it,we laugh at it,” he says. Thus,in an era of comedy,his nameless protagonist is obsessed with tragedy—a premise that’s fraught with comic potential. “Ghost’s Diary is about a playwright who wants to write an epic tragedy,but all his works only have the audience in splits. He also has a passion for writing his diary. The story is narrated by the ghost of the writer as he comes to terms with his teenage and youth while reading his diaries,” says Dhamija who calls his theatre group Shoelace Productions.

The play marries jovial and serious moods,often simultaneously. When the young boy is about to commit suicide,his girlfriend calls and says,“Can it wait for another day,I have a spare ticket to a movie.” It’s moments like this that have fascinated Major (retd) Md Ali Shah,31,as he grew up watching his uncle Naseeruddin Shah perform on stage. In Ghost’s Diary,he plays a clown with a difference. “He doesn’t only make people laugh,he also makes them sad,” he says. Ali talks proudly about the medal he won in 2008 after an operation in Jammu & Kashmir,but there are no regrets for quitting the army. He launches into a spiel about loving theatre,loving it enough to quit his “secure job” a year after he got married and all of it sounds quite convincing.

Since he packed away his fighting gear in 2008,Ali has acted in half-a-dozen major plays,including uncle Shah’s The Caine Mutiny: Court Martial. “Today,I work in the corporate sector and this gives me enough time to pursue theatre,” he adds. Unlike Dhamija and Ali,diplomat Manpreet Vohra had no clue about what to expect when he was having an evening out with his family at the India Habitat Centre. “I spotted an advertisement on the notice board from Shoelace Productions looking for an actor in his twenties,” says Vohra. He had never done theatre before,but he applied anyway.

When Dhamija met him,his first reaction was,“But my character is 25,you’re older.” To which Vohra gave a response that Shoelace members love to recount: “My children say I look 35. The remaining 10 years can be handled by your make-up artist.” Vohra,47,got the role. In the process,the character’s years too,were extended and the IFS officer is now the ghost on stage. “My current posting is in Delhi where I am helping set up the South Asian University,a SAARC project. But I rehearsed my lines during official trips in the car,as well as in the loo,” he says,adding that his family is now helping him put up the play’s posters across the city.

As the din of rehearsals begin again and three men cast away their real lives to assume their stage personas,the motto of Shoelace flashes large: “Come let’s exist,knowing that one day,we won’t.”

Ghost’s Diary will be staged on October 15 at 7 pm and October 16 at 4 pm and 7 pm at LTG auditorium.Contact: 9310279949