Actor Manav Kaul’s play Prem Kabootar is a flashback for Delhi viewers
The bittersweet, nostalgic story of three friends whose love life revolved around handwritten letters, bicycles, and meetings — agreed to after much prodding by peers — with equally shy girls next door, formed the storyline of the play Prem Kabootar. It was staged recently as a part of an ongoing theatre festival and successfully transported the viewers to a bygone era.
Performed at the Shri Ram Centre for Performing Arts (SRCPA) as a part of the eight-day Panna Bharat Ram Theatre Festival, Prem Kabootar is a light-hearted play written by thespian-filmmaker Manav Kaul.
Kaul was nominated at the 63rd Filmfare awards for best supporting actor for 2017 film Tumhari Sulu.
The two-hour comedy, peppered with moments of uproarious laughter by the spectators, might be simple and without too many plot twists, but that is exactly what made it relatable.
The characters, sporting high-waisted bell-bottoms, shiny shirts and haircuts inspired by what Bollywood figures got photographed in that month, take us a few decades back.
When Saleem, the tailor receives his first letter from his sweetheart Meenakshi; or when Suneel, an ardent follower of Hindi films, agrees to write a love letter on behalf of his tea-seller friend Raju, only to find the writer inside him, it brought forth many memories that most of the audience found buried within themselves.
The dreamy love affair, in an age with no dating apps, takes one to the “era of school days, teenage love affairs, romance in the air and enthusiastically following the heroes, heroines and even the story-lines of Hindi Cinema.”
“There was no social media, but there were feelings. If you had to say something to someone, you had to go to their house, pursue for weeks or say it through friends. The human feelings of love and desire are still the same today,” the play’s director Sameep Singh, an NSD graduate and currently the repertory chief in SRCPA said.
Asked how he adapted Kaul’s story for the proscenium, Singh said, “Kaul did write it as a story, but even while dramatising, I’ve tried to retain its flavour. There are additions to scenes, for instance Kaul wrote just a line in the dream sequence saying ‘I saw her in my dreams’, but I’ve developed it fully as a scene.”
The theatre festival gained traction on just its second day, after Prem Kabootar and another powerful play Tughlaq written by Girish Karnad and directed by K. Madavane.
Also lined up are plays Arsenic and Old Lace, Dadu, Kala Suraj Safed Sayee, Poem of an Ending (based on Shesher Kobita by Rabindranath Tagore). The week-long theatrical retreat will end on Friday with Agni aur Barkha.