Love,Lies and Family Feud

The story is about Harishchandra Verma (played by Vijay Verma) and Shyam Sunder Sharma (played by Santram Maurya),who are always at loggerheads. A violent inter-family row breaks out when their children fall in love. Harishchandra employs a detective to get incriminating evidence against Shyam Sunders son so that he can convince his daughter not to get married to him. But due to a comedy of errors,Shyam Sunder ends up taking his sons onus and hires the same detective to get back at Harish Chandra. The sleuth digs up a lot of details of their unsavoury past. In their anxiety to keep matters from their wives,the duo becomes involved in many farcical situations and finally turn friends after their children tie the knot.

Apart from acting,Verma has also written and directed the play. Surprisingly,No Mangni But Shaadi premiered in 1983. After staging 50 shows till 1993,it has now been revived after 17 years. The writer-director says,After the satellite boom in 1993,all of us started focussing on television and couldnt make time for theatre as it demands a lot of effort. But this year we felt that we should revive this play. After all,where else do we get reaction of live audience that is a huge morale booster for every artiste.

Verma,who has directed and penned several TV shows like Lakeerein,Ghar Ek Sapna,Kesariya Balam Aavo Hamare Des,got the idea for the play in the early 1980s after seeing an English comedy production in London. Though it was a sex comedy,he borrowed the basic premise and adapted it to the Indian milieu and incorporated a moral value to make it more entertaining. Today apart from Verma,Maurya and television actress Aruna Sangal,the cast comprises new faces like Ajita Kulkarni,Deepak Kukreja,Aalekh Sangal,Yohana Vachhani,Amit Ghosh,Monali Dutta,Aftab Alam and Mini Ribeiro. Explaining this change,he says,I wanted to give an opportunity to younger actors. Aruna,Santram and me share a good rapport and suit our characters quite well.

Apart from the cast,he also made the script crisp as todays audience prefers compact plays and incorporated topical issues that lend themselves to comedy to make it more contemporary. Quiz him,how has he coped with the changing times as far as acting is concerned and he laughs,Earlier Santram and I would use a whitener to look old and today we use a dye to look younger.

Maurya,on the other hand,who is a businessman by profession but an actor by choice,is ecstatic to share the stage with Verma again. He says,Both of us share a wonderful camaraderie off stage too. I have acted in his other productions too but No Mangni But Shaadi is close to my heart as it was our first play together.

He,however,admits that it has been quite taxing to match up with the times and get into the skin of his character again after over a decade. I had to brush up my acting skills,rehearse with the younger lot of actors and improvise constantly. But it was an enjoyable process. Earlier,we had to change our voices to sound old and grumpy but now,it comes naturally to us, he signs off.