Deepak Dhamija, director-scriptwriter of the play, Da For Diary, talks to Avik Royabout why he opted out of venture capitalism, to present a drama about a philosophical youngster caught in city life
Da for Diary by Deepak Dhamija, to be staged at lTG Theatre on Sunday, is a comedy about tragedies.
The story of a mischievous small town boy with a penchant for tragedies, gets entangled in existential dilemmas after being exposed to the Kafka’s and Sartre’s of literature in the city. His transition from small town to the big city, is more than mere geographical movement. His attempts to avoid attention during his school days, gets replaced with his obsession for fame. His habit of trivialising life has now changed into taking trivial things seriously.
The story shapes up with quirky interactions between the protagonist’s inner-self and his thoughts personified by the Diary. The conditioned mind’s resistance to acknowledge emotions other than laughter, giving way to continual tussles between grin and grimace form the underlying theme. The protagonist’s yearning for melancholy and fantasy for tragedy in an era of comedies intensifies his existential dilemma.
The central theme is that every comedy, has an underlying tragedy and if looked from a different perspective, every tragedy is a matter of joke too.
This play is much contemporary and written based on today’s times. This is an era of comedies where people are dying to laugh, exactly opposite to 60’s when people were in love with tragedies. It reflects in the shows coming up. This taste depends a lot on recent happenings of the era. The mood is upbeat, people are looking at positive side and everyone is running as fast as he can to achieve more. Now the question remains, what if there is someone who is still in love with tragediesIJ
The play starts on a hilarious note, where the protagonist, a village-school student is shown to take life very casually. He is rebuked by everyone — his parents, his teachers for letting them down. Writing the diary is a form of punishment offered to him by his teacher.
Though the protagonist initially takes the idea of writing of Dairy to the world of fame as another Herculean task and scoffs it off hilariously, it lingers in his mind. He gets inspired by Anne Frank'sThe Dairy of a Young Girl. Thus, he starts writing Dairy, narrating every bit and pieces of his otherwise unsuccessful life in it. The Dairy becomes his outlet in life; the source of inspiration. The scene ends with his repercussion on his unsuccessful love life and his failures in doing something meaningful.
The audience is then taken ten years ahead in a time machine to the life in city, where the boy’s elder brother is seen in a confused state of mind. He cribs to find meaning and understand himself. The audience is told that they have left writing diary as it was ‘an act of juvenile foolishness’. life holds a greater significance now for him. The elder brother has taken to reading tragedies and trying to relate them to his life.
He writes a tragedy which ends being a comedy for the audience. This dilemma unnerves him and the brother. They resume writing Dairy once again. Once, in reply to Diary’s remark that “Whatever makes you laugh is a comedy and whatever makes you cry is a tragedy”, the protagonist says, “Who will decide when should we laugh and when should we cryIJ”
They unsuccessfully try to commit suicide. Only to make life and death seem like a farce.
The play ends with the death of the two brothers in a road accident. Their ghosts conclude: "life is never so easy that one can live peacefully and its never so difficult that one can commit suicide without any regrets." The play has the influence of street theatre and the concept of enacting the role of multiple characters by the same actor, as conceptualised by Badal Sircar.
A bottle of Old Monk, a broken chair, a broom, a stick, a pair of sandal, a Shirin Sewani, a Nitin Sukhija, a Tarun Singhal and an apple are all the props the story has to make it into a play on existentialism.
The director, Deepak Dhamija is an alumnus of IIM Calcutta who briefly had a fling with venture capitalism in Chennai, then started his own theatre group, Shoelace production. Dhamija says, “My soul will be at peace seeing a spotlight on my tombstone instead of a Ferrari in my garage”.
During his stint as a management student in Kolkata, he did three workshops with Nandikar, one of the oldest theatre groups in India. He claims to be influenced by ‘third theatre’, the concept propounded by Badal Sircar.
Explaining the idea for the play came as he realised that “comedies, jokes and witty remarks are everywhere. I realise in any debate or, issues related activism, we are on the side of humour. Humour has become and important part in our lives.” So far the play has been staged 11 times in cities like Delhi, Gurgaon, Kolkata and Chennai, including one at the Nandikar’s 28th National Theatre Festival in Kolkata in 2011.
