Event Details

Gujarati Play

An NCPA Presentation in collaboration with Ideas Unlimited

Supported by Bajaj Beyond

The dictionary meaning of ‘tabiyat’ is nature, temperament, mind, disposition, mood, habit, etc., but the larger meaning is more than the sum of its parts. At one level, Tabiyat is a love triangle, encompassing different shades of love across a variety of characters and contexts. On another level, it is a love triangle between the body’s urge to continue living, the mind’s yearning to freeze time and the soul’s pursuit to go beyond it all. Tabiyat is also a love triangle between the audience and the performers where they both woo the muse of theatre and capture her in space and time, with bodies and breath. Three triangles can make a trapezoid or a tetrahedron or a triangular pyramid and that structure holds within itself, a fishing net. Peter Brook refers to these moments as ‘the golden fish’ and the performer’s wish is to try to catch the golden fish. This net is also made of holes where ‘tabiyat’ flows freely and knots where ‘tabiyat’ gets entangled. Inspired by age-old health practices like Qigong, pranayama (breathwork) and ayurveda, this play attempts to personify the seven major body organs—the brain, lungs, liver, bladder, kidneys, heart, stomach and intestines. These become seven bereaved characters who are all in search of tabiyat, who has either evaporated to become invisible or has eloped. Highlighting the exploitation of the Divine Feminine in soil health, planetary health and bodily health, Tabiyat integrates modern research in health, wellness and nutrition while taking inspiration from the story of Upakosha and her suitors in Somadeva’s Kathasaritsagara. The play is also set in the genre of an investigative musical where an unnamed disease has engulfed present-day Mumbai and as it travels northwards towards the suburbs, the women begin to lose their reflections and the men their erections. It’s a medical emergency as something is rotten in the state of our health.

Written by Satchit Puranik
Directed by Manoj Shah
Cast: Mansi Joshi, Disha Savla Upadhyay, Rusabh Kamdar, Dharmendra Gohil and the team of Ideas Unlimited
Lights by Husseini Dawawala
Music by Amit Bhavsar
Sets by Kabir Thakore

Box Office now open.