Pages from a man's life

Ashish Vidyarthi impresses in taut monologue Dayashankar Ki Diary

After powerful performances of Sakubai and Begum Jaan, Nadira Babbar's Ekjute Theatre returned to Dubai with a brilliant monologue, Dayashankar Ki Diary, starring National Award-winning actor Ashish Vidyarthi, over the weekend.

Thanks to the initiative of Rangmanch which aims to provide economically-priced tickets, more theatre lovers could watch the two shows on Thursday and Friday evening.

Held at the Emirates Auditorium of the Crowne Plaza hotel, the play was gripping from the word go with Vidyarthi, as protagonist Dayashankar, turning the pages of his life. He was funny one moment and emotional the next, reliving his life in detail.

The plot was interesting. This small-town guy lands up in Mumbai, the city of gold, with stars in his eyes. He expects riches and glamour but becomes only a lower division clerk in a government department.

He is forced to live in a remote suburb with a fun loving, but dominating, room-mate.

Supported by a strong script and direction (both by Nadira Babbar), Vidyarthi conveyed the hardships of urban living brilliantly. The way he moved in a crowded train, his body jerking and almost falling, took the audience, sitting in plush seats, to the over-crowded, reckless trains of Mumbai.

The inclusion of references to the recent communal violence in Gujarat proved that the play has kept abreast with changing news. This is also the strongest point of Babbar and her Ekjute group.

The set, which had a bed on one side and a table and chair on the other, managed to encompass both Dayashankar's home and office life.

Vidyarthi simply leapt from one end to the other and, by doing so, managed to transport viewers to two different worlds of simple living and office politics. Especially poignant were his "nights", when he remained a lonely man haunted by memories and suffering the burden of supporting his family.

The brighter side of his life is his platonic love for the "MLA's daughter". His naivete generated roars of laughter from the audience.

The play was brilliant, fun and emotion perfectly balanced to keep the audience on the edge of their seats. There was just one jarring moment during the Thursday night show and that came from the audience, not the stage.

A mobile phone rang and Vidyarthi stopped, asked the lights be put on and told the audience to switch off their phones. Babbar came up to the front of the stage and pointed out that the phone-ringing strongly breaks the actor's concentration.

The phones silent, Vidyarthi continued his seasoned performance.

Dayashankar Ki Diary was funny, disturbing and, ultimately, deeply moving. It showed that for a play to succeed you need a good script, direction and acting and not necessarily expensive sets or a star-cast a mile long.