Autumn Romance:
The theatre group Ank, founded by late Dinesh Thakur, was taken over by his wife Priita Mathur Thakur, and she has successfully kept the flow of old and new productions going.
Hum Dono had been adapted from Aleksei Arbuzov Old World by Thakur many years ago; he also starred in the two-hander with Priita. She has revived it in Ank’s 47th year, and directed it too. Hum Dono is one of those plays which has got an added significance over the years, because the social problem of elders being left alone after the death of a spouse, and migration of children to other places for jobs, has become acute. Also, now with senior dating sites and meet-ups, the old-fashioned attitude about the lifestyle of elders is changing. Not to mention the obvious fact that seniors are living longer and much more active lives.
So now, the chirpy, inquisitive, and energetic 65-year-old Sarita Desai (Priita Mathur Thakur), is not an aberration; in fact the 70-year-old Doctor Harpreet Singh (Aman Gupta), living with memories of the past is an oddball.
Sarita has come to the sanatorium run by Harpreet for the treatment of some unspecified ailment. Complaints about her singing loudly in her ward, and jumping out of the window when she wants to get out of the locked room have reached the doctor. When he summons her for a meeting to rebuke her, he is left speechless by her cheerful chatter and questions.
Over time, she makes a chink in the wall he has built around himself out of loneliness. His only daughter working in another city barely has time to visit, though he decorates her room in anticipation. What Sarita shares about her past seems like part truth-part fiction. The classic opposites attract theory applies to them– the relentlessly optimistic Sarita, who may be hiding some pain, teaches the glum doctor to look forward to life again.
It is a simple, charming play, with Thakur having written some pithy lines. The staging is unfussy, even if the too long blackouts and too obvious use of the song Abhi To Main Jawan Hoon, are small stumbling locks. Priita could tone down the Gujarati accent a bit in the interest of clarity. Audiences looking for some old-fashioned — in the best sense of the term — entertainment, would enjoy Hum Dono. Seniors in the audience would find greater meaning in a non-preachy play telling them to get on with their lives, and not close their minds to finding companionship and love in old age, for fear of what people will say.
(This piece first appeared in mumbaitheatreguide.com)
