A new Hindi-Punjabi play explores what it means to be free as a woman, through a part fact part fantastical tale
A moment from the rehearsal of the play
At one point in Amb Da Boota (The Mango Tree), a new play by young theatremakers from the Drama School of Mumbai, Lata — the sole female character — breaks into unrestrained laughter at an innocent joke. Her family laughs along, but soon enough, her joy becomes ‘too much’, too ‘unwomanly’. A stern glance from her husband is enough to silence her chuckles. With Women’s Day celebrations burning bright and fading fast behind us, this moment feels like a quiet reminder.
Priyanshu Gupta practises his part at an actors’ residency in Kamshet leading up to the premiere. PICS COURTESY/SUMIT RAWAL
The hour-long play conceptualised as part of an academic project follows Lata’s life — the fag end of it if we were to be precise — as she battles a terminal illness and reveals an unusual last wish to her family. She dreams of becoming a mango tree. The tree serves as a metaphor for freedom, being unbound, or perhaps something more. “We have been discovering new interpretations as we go as well. The central question remains, what happens when a mother wholly, stubbornly, demands the freedom to be who she truly wishes to be?” says troupe member Pranjal Vaid, who sowed the seed of this amb da boota earlier this year.
“I have a chachi [aunt] back home in Delhi who loves a hearty laugh, much like Lata’s in the scene,” Vaid chuckles. Having grown up in a Punjabi family, Vaid borrows from the nuances of a typical North Indian family, including how his aunt’s laughter that often lingered too long would be eventually curtailed. “In another scene, Lata’s son negotiates a truce. ‘You called the shots for me my entire life, why won’t you listen to us now?’ he reasons. These narratives draw from the lives lived and unlived by our mothers, and their mothers before them,” Vaid explains.
Gupta plays the fantastical frog. Pic courtesy/Instagram
For a story coloured in complexities (including a cameo by a fantastical frog, if you fancy a spoiler), the stage design is strikingly minimal. A short staircase on one end, and a lone block on the other. “The block is where Lata finds her comfort and peace, at one point even locking herself in the space,” reveals actor Bhavya Rampal. Déjà vu yet again, this time for Rampal, who remembers how his 90-year-old grandmother had a designated spot for herself in their ancestral home in Delhi. “That was her safe space, so to say. Her everyday essentials, water bottle, and medicines would be neatly arranged around it,” he recalls fondly.
What the production lacks in visual extravagance, it makes up for with its sound design. With original Punjabi lyrics penned by Rampal, the soundtrack finds inspiration in Punjabi folklore and the artform of tappe — fast, rhythmic melodic recitations. “A thousand crows peck on me with the sound of kach kach kach kach, and every time the monsoon comes, I’ll dance a mad dance,” Rampal translates one of the lines from the titular theme song he penned.
Alongside Anya Ghai, who essays the role of Lata, and actors Jai Prakash Kumar and Priyanshu Gupta, the young troupe is eyeing a homecoming of sorts after its Mumbai premiere today. “The stories emerge from our homes in Delhi; it’s only fair that we take them home as soon as we can,” Vaid signs off.
ON Today; 6 pm and 8 pm
AT Chaubara by Veda Factory, Aram Nagar Part 2, Versova.
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