Beyond Bollywood - a riot of colour and dance

There have been a few Bollywood musicals on the London stage and some readers may have seen Bombay Dreams – a Lloyd Webber production – and Merchants of Bollywood – which we saw at the Peacock Theatre. With the recent launch of Beyond Bollywood at the London Palladium it was not an event to be missed.

The audience was pleasingly quite mixed. Indian / Asian families and couples were in the majority, and it transpired later many were Gujaratis who whooped at the Gujarati dances. In addition, there were many African-Caribbean and white families too, perhaps getting their first taste of Bollywood.

The plotline is quite simple: with the death of her mother, Jaswinder, a theatre owner and Kathak dancer, Shaily, a jazz funk dancer, leaves her home in Germany to find the roots of Indian dance in India and so save the theatre from aggressive promoters.

At each stage the audience are taken through various styles of dance from the Kathak of Jaswinder, jazz funk, and following Shaily’s journey through India in Rajasthan, Punjab, Gujarat, Orissa and discovering the dances around the Hindu festival of Holi, and using the Sufi tradition of Qawwali singers.

It was good to see the production embrace Indian regional differences and styles, as well as the main religions of Islam and Hinduism. Anyone familiar with contemporary Bollywood  will recognise the dance styles and the costumes

The four main leads: Ana Ilmi as Shaily Shergil, Mohit Mathur as Raghav, a Bollywood choreographer, Sudeep Modak as Ballu, his assistant, and Pooja Pant, as Shaily’s mother, Jaswinder Shergill, were all outstanding. Indeed one wishes Pant had been on stage longer; her movements and gestures were sublime. The accompanying chorus lines were also outstanding with barely a foot wrong in the whole production; they had to master a range of styles with fast costume changes necessary on occasion.

The music was a mix of familiar songs e.g. Jai Ho, from Slumdog Millionaire, and songs written especially for this production. And almost without fail the music literally hit the right notes, from the ballads to the more upbeat numbers.  The sets were amazing, using backlit screens, and easily transported the audience from Europe to India, and the various regions of India.

Beyond Bollywood embodies the spirit of modern Bollywood: the vibrancy, energy, costumes and music, and in particular, the ensemble dances as well as the virtuoso dances. My only criticisms would be that the show could have gone on for a further 5 minutes and perhaps would have benefitted from an encore that the audience’s standing ovation demanded. For me the production went far too quickly and kept me spellbound.

http://beyondbollywoodmusical.com/

Happy Birthday Sunita

I've been doing a lot of motorway driving recently - which I find incredibly tedious.  The only upside (if a good DAB radio is available) is the opportunity to listen to radio programmes I might not otherwise have the time for, or - sorry if this makes you cringe - singing along to old Genesis CDs.  If I'm in the right space this might extend to Yes or Bollywood classics such as 'Dil Se'.  There is also a kind of rootless anonymity I quite like in the motorway service stations - as with airports -  even if the price of coffee is over-inflated. And so, somewhere on the M40 I managed to catch a delightful interview with Shabana Azmi on last Friday's 'Woman's Hour'.

The daughter of Urdu poet Kaifi Azmi and actress Shaukat Azmi,  Shabana Azmi was perhaps destined for a life in film and theatre.  Her parents were also members of the Indian Communist Party and Shabana has combined her career as an actress - having appeared in over 120 Hindi and Bengali films - with social activism.  She has campaigned on a number of issues including HIV / AIDS and also women's rights.  Since 1997 she has also been a nominated member (ie. not directly elected member) of the Rajya Sabha - the upper house of the Indian Parliament.  You can see why I was drawn to her.

Recently, she has been touring the UK with Rifco Arts - an award-winning British Asian Theatre Company.  In the play 'Happy Birthday Sunita', Azmi plays the mother Tejpal Johal.   In the Woman's Hour interview, Jenni Murray started by asking Shabana what drew her to the script.  Her response:

'....because I thought it had a very simply message that would reach out to older women and I have been working with women for a long time now.  So, that was something that attracted me – it’s an uplifting play.  Plus the fact that Rifco Arts itself is a charity – it is funded by the British Arts Council and what I really appreciate about it is that it has successfully weaned away what was largely a Bollywood-watching audience into regular theatre–goers.  They have done that by telling stories about the British Asian community located in situations that they understand by keeping the tickets rates really low.  And since I come from a theatre background, to me that is an extremely important contribution that Rifco Arts is doing'.

Jenni Murray then went on to ask Shabana what was it about the character that fascinated her, that was so special about her?  Shabana's reply really struck me:

' Because I know many women such as Tejpal Johal who have really struggled very hard and made enormous personal sacrifices to keep the family going.  Her husband has been away, she has brought up in a strange country 2 children on her own.  She works in a surgery and she has really never been anything other than ‘Mum’ for the family – they have just seen her in the stereotype of what a mother is – which is basically just serving them food and looking after their needs.  And she then says that I have played by the rules of the game.  I have done all I have to do. You are all grown up now.  I am now going to follow my dreams because all along I have been told that women who speak their minds are dangerous and so I have kept quiet.  But keeping quiet hasn’t made my life any better.  And so she springs a surprise on the family and suddenly comes alive as just a person rather than just ‘Mum’ as you have seen her.  And I have seen that in so many women and I have seen they become invisible in a way.  They fit into a slot, they make your life convenient and they’ve never looked beyond that.  And suddenly there is a spark and you realise, my God, they are special women'.

I found this reply so moving - because, exactly as she says, the reality for many women in traditional families is that they are the ones who are in the background, who keep the family together, the 'show on the road'.  They cook, clean, do the washing - all to smooth the paths and facilitate the lives of their children, husbands and relatives.  But where are their dreams?  Where are their hopes and aspirations?  And once they are not there, the family realises just how special their invisible Mums actually are.

'Happy Birthday Sunita' - is currently about to head overseas to Dubai, Delhi or Mumbai though is set to return to the UK next year.

http://rifcoarts.com/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04l3nnp

Sukanya – Highlights of Ravi Shankar’s Opera at the Royal Opera House

Late last year I had attended a presentation by David Murphy, the composer, and Amit Chaudhuri, the author who is a librettist, at the Nehru Centre in London on Sukanya, the opera that Murphy and Ravi Shankar collaborated on till Shankar’s death. You can read my review of the presentation here: http://www.indiainlondon.com/inventor-of-genius-ravi-shankars-opera-sukanya-previewed-at-the-london-nehru-centre/

I had ended my initial review by suggesting that I was looking forward to the actual production but I had not anticipated being invited to a select gathering. Following my review Murphy had graciously invited us to a highlights programme at the Royal Opera House (ROH) this week. The audience was perhaps more opera focussed than Indophile. But there were a number of leading Indian-English families there too. We were also joined by Shankar’s wife, Sukanya, who was in part the inspiration for the opera, and his daughter, Anouskha, who is a sitarist and a collaborator on the project.

Murphy began by taking us through the background to the project and how he had first met Ravi Shankar. Most of this is relayed in my earlier blog. Just to recap Sukanya is based on an excerpt from the Mahabharata and had been a potential project for Shankar for many years. He had wanted to combine Western and Eastern music, opera, dance and animation. Indeed Shankar had told Murphy that he were not a musician he would have wanted to be a film maker. Shankar had worked with Satyajit Ray on a number of projects. Tellingly Shankar did not distinguish between Western and Eastern music nor even a joint project as fusion, but just music.

The programme included four scenes from Act 1 of the opera Sukanya, which I understood has been the only Act completed to date. It also appears that Chaudhuri’s libretto is still in the draft phase. The Linbury Theatre in the ROH has a small stage and at first I thought the sheer range of performers would overwhelm the production but I worried unnecessarily. The Indian musicians, with the shehnai, whose sounds I love, sitar, mridangam and table, took centre stage, with younger musicians from the London Philarmonic Orchestra on either side, the soprano and tenor towards the front, and a dance floor.

I found the entire production utterly spellbinding, and some of the comments I heard beside me included “fantastic” and “brilliant”. Each of the Western and Eastern traditions took priority at times but when they combined there was a driving beat, and it did not seem incongruous, but in fact blended superbly. Equally the combination of a soprano and tenor together with Eastern music worked amazingly well. When the classical Indian dancers came on it was almost sensory overload, one almost did not know where to look. There was also the animations, created by 59 Productions, which were projected onto a screen behind, and some of the transparent walls between the performers. But the overall effect was of a production that was seamless and near flawless both in execution and quality. I am not an opera buff but I could recognise the high quality of the soprano (Susanna Hurrell) and tenor (Amar Muchhala). At times Muchhala sounded like a Qawwali singer which greatly added to the atmosphere.

It seems that the completed production will be performed at some point in 2015. I am anticipating seeing this work, with its unique combination of music, opera, dance and animation. My only caveat would be that perhaps this intimacy could be never be replicated on the larger stage; nevertheless worth waiting for.

http://ravishankaroperaproject.org/

www.davidmurphyconducts.org

www.amitchaudhuri.com

www.anouskhashankar.com

'Speed' at Kali Theatre - a review

‘It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife’.

Set in 19^th century Britain, this opening sentence of Jane Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’ will be familiar to many, together with Gurinder Chadha’s Indian film adaptation ‘Bride and Prejudice’.

Traditionally though in India it would not be the man or women looking for a spouse, but the parents and relatives.  The ‘ideal type’ for a wife or husband among educated or wealthy Indian families would perhaps include:

• Doctor (preferably consultant) / PhD / MBA – from the top universities in either UK or US


• Wealthy or potential to become very wealthy


• No previous history – ie. has remained celibate / virginal, no boyfriends or girlfriends – not even a hint at fancying the opposite sex until marriage (this rule might be relaxed slightly for boys, never for girls)


• Heterosexual (of course)


• Same caste if Hindu


• Devoted to parents and dutiful.


• Girls only: good cook, passive and obedient.  Even if a doctor / PhD / MBA


• Preferably light-skinned (yes, I know – racist overtones – but the preference exists)

This is an ideal type, of course, which only a tiny minority will actually be able to live up to.  Then there is the rest of us and Reality.

For many of us, myself included, your 20s was a time of insecurity and confusion, also excitement and exploration - and trying to work out what on earth you actually want to do with your life.  More so perhaps in a big city like London where anything and everything is on offer. I know there are some – and I have known some very impressive 20-somethings – who are admirably sorted, focused and pursuing their goals.  But I would suggest the vast majority of us, especially in the West, are bumbling along, trying to make sense of it all.  Add to that parental pressure to ‘settle down and get married’ plus your own internal pressure to find a ‘soulmate’ to settle down with and have babies – no big deal then, just someone to sleep with and live with for the rest of your life – and it can add up to much confusion, heartbreak and anxiety.

This is the territory explored by the play Speed, which we saw last week at the Tristan Bates Theatre in Central London.  Written by Iman Qureshi – herself a 20-something, and performed by the innovative Kali Theatre – it focuses on 5 characters brought together at an Asian speed dating event.  Through a series of dialogues between different pairings and monologues, each character reveals their individual search for identity.  There is Qal, the slick city banker who is struggling to acknowledge his attraction to other men.  Sara, in a pink wig and short dress, seems in reaction to, or in denial of her Pakistani Muslim heritage.  Drinking heavily, when asked where she is from she says ‘London’.  And where her parents are from? – ‘London’.  Shalini has just broken up with her white rich boyfriend and Nikesh is marking the first anniversary of his break up from his girlfriend by coming to the speed dating event.  Perhaps most movingly was Sammy – born a girl but changed gender to become a man.  He is here hoping to experience his first kiss with a woman.

Susen’s first response after the play was that ‘it wasn’t very Asian’.  But what exactly is an ‘Asian’ play?  It was a breath of fresh air to have contemporary writing that didn’t evoke the same stereotypes of family pressure to marry the chosen partner versus an ‘immoral’ western lifestyle of boyfriends and girlfriends.  These are the 2^nd and 3^rd generation immigrants who have been brought up with western liberties and values and it’s good to see a theatre production representing these 20-somethings as individual, sometimes conflicted characters like the rest of us - searching for and trying to create their identities in a reflexive, complex, late modern, liberal, multicultural industrialised society that is London today.

Drawing the Line - Hampstead Theatre

Regular readers of this blog know that my antecedents came from Calcutta in the heart of Bengal.  Calcutta was one of the major cities of British India and now of the Indian republic.  So it was rather a shock when I learnt from 'Drawing the Line' that serious thought had been given to awarding Calcutta to East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) on Partition in 1947.

After the end of the Second World War, Calcutta was a hotbed of intrigue, fervour and violence.  My father had come to Calcutta from a small town in West Bengal to study medicine, and at this time was General Secretary of his students’ union.  He was involved in independence activities to such an extent that he was targeted by Special Branch.  This was one family legend I know is true since an uncle later became a very high ranking policeman.

Calcutta had been a major military centre during the Second World War, been bombed by the Japanese, and its populace had suffered grievously during the famine of 1943.  Bengali independence sentiment had been emboldened by learning of the exploits of the Bengali Subhas Chandra Bose in leading an army, the Indian National Army (INA) - supported by the Japanese - to fight the British.  Bose’s army was composed of all religions and he himself was an avowed critic of Gandhi.  It was in this context that Calcutta had to endure periodic bouts of communal violence pitting Muslims against Hindus.

The rest of India was also in ferment: a trial of INA officers, one from each of the major religions, at the symbolic Red Fort in Delhi had galvanised the country.  There were mutinies among sections of the Indian armed forces and Gandhi appeared to be able to turn protests on and off at will.  Meanwhile at home the UK was still suffering from the restrictions of rationing:  it was feeding Germany, the Fascist enemy had been replaced by the Communist one, there was industrial upheaval with nationalisations, the NHS was created, and there was an economic crisis with the US unwilling to bail us out.  In this political, social and economic environment the British people and government had lost the will to maintain it's Indian colony.

'Drawing the Line' starts almost comically with Sir Cyril Radcliffe being summoned to 10 Downing Street by Prime Minister Clement Atlee to be told he is to literally draw the borders between India and Pakistan in the run up to independence and do so within 5 weeks.  Radcliffe is a senior judge praised for his intellect but with no experience of India, or cartography.  These “attributes” are presented as an advantage in being able to rise above the fray and not be influenced by prior knowledge and experience.  From the outset however, Radcliffe knows that he has been presented with a Gordian Knot.  It’s rather a good analogy since Alexander the Great realised he couldn’t untie the knot.

Moving swiftly to India the scenes are set for the tragedies to come.  The enmities between Muslims and Hindus make it clear why the creation of two countries is necessary.  Radcliffe meets the major stakeholders from Mountbatten, Nehru of Congress, to Jinnah of the Muslim League - but not Gandhi.  He has a limited staff tainted by prior associations and friendships.  The affair between Edwina Mountbatten and Nehru is presented as an open secret with Edwina acting as a conduit for information to Nehru.

This first half of the play shows the limits of Radcliffe’s knowledge:  while he is aware of some of the major events such as the Amritsar massacre, salt marches and the hangings following Ferozpur, he didn’t know Nehru had been imprisoned for most of the war.  He calls some events “blots” which justifiably irritate his Indian interlocutors. Radcliffe also talks about a “level playing field” between Hindus and Muslims which again is the source of irritation. In briefing Radcliffe Mountbatten mentions an “acceptable number of deaths” of 100,000 during the Partition process which shows that the British knew that the latent enmities could not be controlled.  In the event the number of killings was far higher.  The British had lit the blue touch paper and wanted out as soon as possible.

In the second half Radcliffe’s Delhi Belly is presented comically perhaps suggesting an Englishman who could not survive the rigors of India.  The pressure on Radcliffe from all sides intensifies with Sikhs wanting their own homeland, uncertainty about the intentions of various independent rulers and Hindu and Muslim negotiators almost at each other’s throats suggesting they cannot control their supporters.  Radcliffe cannot come to any clear decision about a particular section of the border, continually wavering.  He realises he is in an impossible position and is in his own words a “patsy”, or a cover for all concerned.  Radcliffe is seen as heading for a breakdown and takes solace in the Bhagavad Gita.  Ostensibly independent he is strong-armed by Mountbatten into a pro-Indian solution for a section of the border.  It is suggested that Mountbatten shortened the partition / independence process from 9 months to 5 weeks merely to stymie the Edwina-Nehru affair.  The play ends with Nehru and Jinnah making their Independence Day speeches against the backdrop of the stage afire suggesting the violence and killings the process had unleashed.

It’s difficult to consider what else both the British government and Radcliffe could have done differently during the 5 WEEK process of independence.  There was no “win-win” solution and all parties would have felt aggrieved.  The warlike postures of both India and Pakistan could not have been foreseen.  Given the cultures of Bengal and Punjab/Sind it is difficult to contemplate the two as separate parts of one country and the independence of Bangladesh could perhaps have been foreseen.  The British failed miserably in keeping some semblance of order during the Partition process and a great deal of the blame for the killings must rest with them.  But there are also mitigating circumstances: both Congress and the Muslim League had to some extent fanned the flames of religious hatred and the UK did not have enough troops to effectively police the country.

The playwright Howard Brenton has done an outstanding job in bringing the multifaceted events of 1947 to the stage but in such a short time frame, ironically, it is difficult to present a comprehensive picture.  One’s enjoyment of the play is dependent on some prior knowledge of the background.  The major characters, in particular Radcliffe (Tom Beard), Nehru (Silas Carson) and Jinnah (Paul Bazely) are well portrayed and believable although only Beard is allowed sufficient opportunity to give depth to his character.  Mountbatten and his wife are not allowed sufficient time to develop their characters, nor is Gandhi.   Although one is distracted by the presence of important historical figures and the Edwina-Nehru affair one should not forget that the main focus should be on Radcliffe and his role. Tim Hatley deserves great credit for sets that require quick changes and take one from Downing Street to the heat of Government House in Delhi.  'Drawing the Line' is a play I enjoyed immensely and I would hope it might benefit from a longer run and greater exposure.  The play has certainly encouraged me to re-read some of my books on the period.

Cornelia Calling

I had somehow subscribed or been subscribed to a newsletter listing the Kali Theatre’s future performances and two in particular stood out: Cornelia Calling and Twelve, on 'honour' killings. The Kali Theatre specialises in producing plays written by Asian women. For various reasons, well my failure to note the correct time, we’d missed Twelve but on Friday we had seen Cornelia Calling. For us it pushed a number of potential buttons: my interest in history generally, Sue’s personal interest in feminism and professional interest in law.

The Tristan Bates Theatre is a rather non-descript building near Leicester Square looking like an office. Like Asia House no tickets are required but akin to a private party one’s names are listed.  As usual we were early and killed some time in the bar before the performance.

The theatre is probably the smallest I have ever attended and seated perhaps 100 people.  The set was rather spartan, with just a table and chairs, and a piano. As we entered the theatre the cast were already in situ. As soon as the audience were settled the play or the reading began. The performance was described as a “reading”, with the actors reading from scripts and it was rather similar to a rehearsal.

Cornelia Calling is based on the life of Cornelia Sorabji, an Indian Christian Parsee from Bombay who is believed to be the first woman to read law at Oxford in the 1890s. While she read law she did not receive a degree because she was a woman.  After “graduation” Cornelia split her time between India and the UK, and was often unable to practise law because of her gender.

Much of the reading revolves around Cornelia’s meetings with her friend Mary while students at Somerville College in Oxford, and at times during their lives.  Like Cornelia Mary is also an outsider, from a Geordie working class family. Through their conversations we learn about Cornelia’s background, her motivations in studying law and her life and career after Oxford.  There were two other actors who played various roles including Hindu women in purdah who had been exploited by male advisers and looking to Cornelia’s mother for advice, and Gandhi, who had met with Cornelia, as well as other roles including the narrator.

Most of Cornelia’s life is presented as a struggle, and fighting against the odds.  Even within India she was often regarded with suspicion for coming from a Christian background and for having a mother from a low-caste.  On her return to India Cornelia is forced to work as an informal legal adviser unable, despite some influential supporters, to be allowed to appear as an advocate in her own right.  However, Cornelia was later allowed to practise after legislation was passed in India to enable women to become barristers.

One of the main set-pieces of the reading is a meeting between Cornelia and Gandhi in 1931 in London.  The conversation on stage was recently replicated in The Telegraph.  The two had many elements in common, British educated, and trained in the law, with both unable to practice at times.  Cornelia comes across as a devoted Anglophile opposed to full Indian independence but supportive of dominion status, similar to that of Canada and Australia.

Cornelia castigates Gandhi for being unable to restrain his supporters from engaging in violence despite his non-violent ethos.  She also criticises Gandhi for presuming he represents all Indian opinion; she suggests he only represents the educated and upper classes.  While the independence movement and the Indian upper classes encompassed a wide range of viewpoints I doubt if many would have opposed full independence as Cornelia appears to.

In one of their conversations Mary asks Cornelia “Are you English or Indian?”  The mere fact the question was asked indicates some level of ambiguity.  One is reminded that both Gandhi and Nehru aped Western habits certainly in terms of clothes in their formative years, and Gandhi’s austere lifestyle was heavily influenced by radical vegetarians in the UK when he came to study for the Bar.  Indeed Nehru referred to himself as the “last English ruler of India” perhaps not anticipating that his daughter Indira would become Prime Minister, and the language of the Nehru household was English and not Hindi.  One cannot now imagine an Indian leader making Nehru’s “tryst with destiny” speech in English.

Cornelia’s relationships receive rather cursory treatment, although her friend Mary does propose a lesbian relationship which Cornelia rejects.  There is a suggestion of a relationship with a married lawyer in India, although it is not clear whether the man is Indian or British.

Cornelia’s life is indeed one that warrants exploration principally because of her almost continual battles with male dominated and perhaps misogynistic institutions and professions. At almost every stage in her life there are barriers to be overcome: getting to university in Bombay, a place at Oxford, her putative relationship with a lawyer in Allahabad, and being prevented from practicing.  Some of these situations and incidents could have been an entire play in their own right particularly the encounter with Gandhi.

My own feeling was that Cornelia’s life could have been better portrayed more narrowly and that the format tried to cover too much ground thus giving the audience little of substance.  We had relatively little of Cornelia’s motivations, in particular in taking up the law although there was a focus on unrepresented Hindu women, her seeming lack of feminism, and her Anglophilia.  Cornelia’s passions did not manifest themselves explicitly.  I also found the relationship with and the background of the fictional Mary rather contrived although I do understand that the conversations were necessary for purposes of exposition.  I wonder how many women from working class backgrounds would have made it to Oxford in the 1890s.

Overall a production deserving of a wider audience albeit with some reservations.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1110522/jsp/7days/story_14013867.jsp - Cornelia’s meeting with Gandhi

www.kalitheatre.co.uk

'Debdas' - Richmix, Saturday 15 June.

Last Saturday night saw Susen and me heading to Richmix, near Shoreditch High Street. For me this was going back to my old stomping ground of East London – one I had left back in 2001. Stepping out of the station, I was struck by the transformation of the area – from slightly run down with a gritty urban creative undercurrent, to now uber-trendy with new blocks of upmarket flats amid the new expanding creative and media industries. Richmix was right at home there – a charity / social enterprise with a huge variety of arts, music and cultural events. I had to smile to myself on the train going over there, overhearing a conversation between a young couple. He was asking her whether they would be able to buy alcohol in Brick Lane (probably – though not the first place that would come to mind, it being a Muslim Bangladeshi area). She replied she didn’t know, only that Brick Lane was ‘cool’. That’s the transformation: an inner city area, home to one of the largest Bangladeshi communities outside Bangladesh, and one of the poorest in the UK – now transformed into somewhere that is ‘cool’.

We were there to see a performance of ‘Debdas’ (‘Devdas’) in a new stage adaptation by Farrukh Dhondy (former commissioning editor for Channel 4’s multicultural programmes). Based on the original 1917 story by Sharat Chandra Chattopadhay, it is the latest in a long line of film and theatre adaptations – probably the best known version in the West is the 2002 film, starring Shah Rukh Khan, Aishwarya Rai and Madhuri Dixit.

In the original plot, Devdas is from a wealthy Brahmin family who lives next door to Paro in a village in Bengal, a childhood friend from a not so wealthy family. Devdas returns from studying in Calcutta (Kolkata) to find Paro transformed from a girl into a young woman. Love blossoms between them but ideas of marriage are disapproved of by the respective families and Paro is instead married off to an older man, a widower with three children. Devdas runs away and starts to drink heavily, forming a relationship with Chandramukhi, a prostitute. But he never forgets Paro and the story ends with his attempting reunion with Paro when he realises he is dying. But it was not to be and he dies on her doorstep, their lifelong love unrequited. A familiar tale of love versus family duty, the bedrock of older Indian films.

Dhondy’s adaptation takes the backdrop out of 1900s Bengal and into the 60s cultural revolution of flower power, sex, drugs and roll ‘n’ roll. Instead of Hindu West Bengal, the Bengali location is Dhaka in Muslim Bangladesh with Paro, a medical student. Debdas is (wrongly) told by one of the servants that Paro is pregnant by another man. He runs away – to London this time in the midst of the 60s revolution where he forms a relationship with a white English woman, Chloe – a singer immersed in the decadent 60s culture. Years of alcohol and drugs take their toll and Debdas ends up seriously ill in hospital, close to death. Paro, in the meantime, had been married off to an older man but had continued her studies and qualified as a doctor. Her older husband now dead she comes to London for further training, now with 2 children from her marriage. She seeks out Debdas, dying in his hospital bed but a confrontation between Chloe and Paro leads to Chloe pulling out a gun and threatening to kill Paro. The two women, however, reconcile and embrace each other towards the end with the love between Debdas and Paro destined to be unfulfilled.

The audience was relatively small – probably not more than 100 people – in a small theatre venue that reminded me very much of student theatres, or small art house venues. I couldn’t quite gauge the ethnic / age mix – probably around 50/50 Asian / white with mostly a younger audience – some obviously supporters and friends of the actors or musicians.

The stage set up was simple with very few props. The acting was strong, though, which carried the story, accompanied by Bengali music from Amrit Kaur on the Sarangi, an Indian stringed instrument, and vocals from Tanusree Guha. It was also good to see the same Bengali culture encompassing both West Bengal and Bangladesh, with the shift in setting – a reminder of how much much is shared whether Hindu or Muslim Bengali.

The contemporary adaptation was interesting but I found myself slightly frustrated at the continuation of ethnic stereotypes: Chloe portrayed as the immoral white western woman, corrupting Debdas with sex and drugs while Paro the dutiful Bengali daughter – brought up to date as the stereotypical medical student. Can we not now get beyond these? Strong, educated, focused and even dutiful white women do exist in the West, and surely ideas about possible careers for Asian men and women can now broaden beyond medicine, dentistry and pharmacy. Even in the film, it was not Chandramukti (the prostitute or more quaint ‘courtesan’) who corrupted Devdas, but instead his male friend – giving Chloe a corrupting influence beyond the original story.

Susen confessed to being slightly shocked when Debdas and Paro actually kissed (or acted kissing) on stage [never seen in the Bollywood film version]. We both thought the plot was going to take a thoroughly modern twist when Chloe and Paro embraced each other towards the end. Chloe went to kiss Paro on the cheek and I really thought we were going to see our first lesbian kiss and relationship in this version of Debdas. But no, it was just a friend’s hug. We were, after all still in the 60s – which, for all its hippy LSD-fuelled cultural revolution, was still resolutely homophobic, racist and sexist.

Still, really good to see such a low budget adaptation of an Indian classic to counter the big budget Bollywood versions. I’ve a feeling I might be re-visiting my old East End haunts quite a bit more in future.