Chasing B-town dreams
16 July 2012 5:22 AM GMT
Three friends struggling to make it big in Bollywood — the course of this journey as we all know is generally full of compromises and ends with the survival of the fittest.
This is what Raj Narain Dixit’s Naked Truth explores. This Hindi play that was staged at Alliance Francaise de Delhi on 12 July had power-packed performances and rich and meaningful dialogues that brought to light the growing hypocrisy among those with silver screen aspirations.
The three lead characters — Zaheer, Mohan and Brabhupati — were initially theatre lovers who change the course and meaning of their monotonous life and relationships for the magic of mayanagri Mumbai.
Among all three, Mohan survives the competition and goes on to climb the peaks of success. The reason? He agrees to compromise at every step. Brabhupati dies as the leader of the masses while leading another commercialised agitation.
Zaheer commits suicide as he tries to cope with the pressure of sticking to his ideals and true emotions. His successful friend Mohan, is in the meantime more concerned about promoting his films rather than being bothered by the death of his childhood friend.
‘My character Zaheer is one who is not really sought after, one who does not readily run off to Mumbai like his friends and is frustrated with what he believes is his wasted talent. Today in the industry we have many such ghostwriters who are paid for their work but are not given the credit for it. Naked Truth is the reality of such lives,’ says actor Avinash Singh.
The play makes you laugh at yourself. It confronts you with the truth that no one is going to stand up and fight for you so you need to make space for yourself in this society.
It also deals with sexual compromises men and women have to make while chasing their Bollywood dreams and how theatre is no longer an option for actors. It also talks about politics and slushy philosophy.
‘We have just tried to highlight how the middle class has always been waiting for someone to fight for them. How everyone is blind towards the problems of others and the fact that we always have an opinion of others not being good to us when we ourselves have never been that good to anyone,’ says director Raj Dixit.
‘The ideologies that we have always preached — where are they? The basic idea was to highlight the reality of life and hypocrisy of people,’ he added.
Point noted.
This is what Raj Narain Dixit’s Naked Truth explores. This Hindi play that was staged at Alliance Francaise de Delhi on 12 July had power-packed performances and rich and meaningful dialogues that brought to light the growing hypocrisy among those with silver screen aspirations.
The three lead characters — Zaheer, Mohan and Brabhupati — were initially theatre lovers who change the course and meaning of their monotonous life and relationships for the magic of mayanagri Mumbai.
Among all three, Mohan survives the competition and goes on to climb the peaks of success. The reason? He agrees to compromise at every step. Brabhupati dies as the leader of the masses while leading another commercialised agitation.
Zaheer commits suicide as he tries to cope with the pressure of sticking to his ideals and true emotions. His successful friend Mohan, is in the meantime more concerned about promoting his films rather than being bothered by the death of his childhood friend.
‘My character Zaheer is one who is not really sought after, one who does not readily run off to Mumbai like his friends and is frustrated with what he believes is his wasted talent. Today in the industry we have many such ghostwriters who are paid for their work but are not given the credit for it. Naked Truth is the reality of such lives,’ says actor Avinash Singh.
The play makes you laugh at yourself. It confronts you with the truth that no one is going to stand up and fight for you so you need to make space for yourself in this society.
It also deals with sexual compromises men and women have to make while chasing their Bollywood dreams and how theatre is no longer an option for actors. It also talks about politics and slushy philosophy.
‘We have just tried to highlight how the middle class has always been waiting for someone to fight for them. How everyone is blind towards the problems of others and the fact that we always have an opinion of others not being good to us when we ourselves have never been that good to anyone,’ says director Raj Dixit.
‘The ideologies that we have always preached — where are they? The basic idea was to highlight the reality of life and hypocrisy of people,’ he added.
Point noted.
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