Then There Were Three

On stage, playwright Yama Dikshit makes a clean break with his past. He wanders into the unfamiliar and writes a love story with a female lead, Laila8217;. Previously, his work was only about men. In stark contrast is Yama Dikshit8217;s creator, Makrand Deshpande, whose female characters are many and memorable 8212; Kasturi, Chitra, Meena Kumari et al.

With Laila, he sticks to his past. To his women. Sitting on the terrace stage, waiting for a run-through for the Monday evening rehearsal, Makrand talks about Yama as though it is him. His alter ego. quot;This guy has found his Laila played by Trishla Patel at the Dadar Hindu Colony. On a first floor balcony, where she sings, looks at the rainbow, talks about her mother8217;s pickles and reads till the wee hours of the morning. Her majnus are the aspiring cricketers Sachin, Vinod, Saurav and Sanjay who catch droplets from her wet hair instead of the ball8217;. But what can Yama do? He creates her, but can8217;t make her step out of her world, the balcony. She can8217;t be hisLaila.quot; And then comes the second Laila the aggressive and fashionable aspiring Miss Universe Kashmira Shah. A woman of the night, who smokes Menthol cigarettes. quot;If the majnus never had a glance of the first Laila8217;s legs, here8217;s only legs for you.quot; But she is abandoned too, because she can8217;t do whatever Yama says. quot;Besides, he doubts her virginity!quot; The third is the soulful dealer in the quot;spiritual businessquot; Isha Anand. She comes from Kanchanjunga and sweeps Yama off the play. They talk, she falls in love with him. But she refuses to come in to the play. quot;Yama just can8217;t have his ideal Laila the way he wants to the same in the play as well as in life.quot;

The first scene. All of them have got the lines right. Specially Makrand Deshpande himself Yama Dikshit, in the absence of Sudhir Pandey, who8217;ll play the role. The script sounds quite like his earlier ones erudite, yet mellifluous Hindi. Yama is desperate to be in control of his muse. Unlike Makrand who already is. This, in spite of hispre-occupation with two major film roles in two forthcoming films, Visphot and Ghaat. quot;I don8217;t think I can write for someone else now. It8217;s the whole process of creating a character and then seeing it being realised your own way which is satisfying. I can8217;t write with someone else in my mind.quot; A strong statement for a quot;dreamerquot; for whom theatre was an accident, just like cricket and mountaineering. And each, saw a clean break, somewhat like what Yama is trying to do. quot;You know he8217;s convinced about each woman, yet he can8217;t take complete control.

All three of them go away and later when they come back, Yama still wants to change them according to his play. But all they want is to settle down8217;.quot; The play ends with revelry and debauchery in the last supper, where Yama promises to help only to realise that it can8217;t happen in drama. quot;You make your exit from the way you enter the stage. It8217;s like a circle. The show goes on.quot; Laila at the Prithvi Theatre. On Nov 10. Time: 6.00 pm and 9.00 pm.