Picture source: NSD brochure

Venue: Abhimanch, NSD
Date: 10 Febraury, 2016

“Notes on Chai” by Jyoti Dogra (we remember her from “Hyderabad Blues 2”) is based on small talk that we all indulge in – with (or without) chai. It’s a soliloquy theatrical production where Dogra slips in and out of various characters. These characters do not make earth shattering revelations. They are like you and me – office goers, house wives, old ladies and so on. They just speak with us, as we do with people we randomly meet on the stairs, in the market, at the railway station, during a party and so on.  They pass comments about weight loss, share secrets about their personal lives, talk sex (!) or keep yapping about their love for chai!

The script is punctuated by various sound effects that Dogra emits from her throat. A lot of that is abstract but helps to differentiate the various characters Dogra portrays. In fact, the adjective “abstract” can be used for the whole performance. Sans a storyline, the audience does not realise that it is the mundane – its their life – that is being enacted before them.

This kind of experimental theatre, we felt epitomizes the essence of Bharat Rang Mahotsav when we watched this play a while ago. And we are still carrying this piece with us.