A new play makes its debut in Mumbai to showcase a funny take on urban sleep deprivation

Aditi Venkateshwaran as Nirdradevi. Pics Courtesy/Aditi Venkateshwaran

Surrealism can find you in the most unlikely of circumstances. For instance, when director and performance artiste Aditi Venkateshwaran quips, "We are all mosquitoes. Our life barely has any value today," the inner eye immediately travels back to a term that led to one of the most memorable anti-establishment uprisings in recent Indian history. This surrealism is enhanced owing to the sleep-deprived nature of our conversation at 8 am. As it happens, this feeling is at the core of Venkateshwaran's play, Dearest, I Beg Of You, Please Sleep Properly, that opens in Andheri on August 6.

"Life in a big city, particularly an Indian city, feels like an adventure park gone wrong; a surreal tragedy," she says. The Pune-resident points out, "Whenever you meet someone and ask them, ‘How are you doing?' the general response seems to be, "I am good, but I am very tired". We are all tired; and not just from one thing, but everything. This is not normal anymore."

In multiple characters

Thus, the first seeds of Venkateshwaran's parody on urban fatigue were sown during her final year at the Intercultural Theatre Institute, Singapore in 2025. She chose Franz Kafka's note from a letter in 1912 for her title. "It was direct, and so clear as to what we need today." During research, Venkateshwaran realised that sleep deprivation colours not just our behaviour, but also our myths. "Just as I found Kafka, I also found the Goddess of Sleep, Nidradevi. Now, in Indian mythology, as in Greek and Roman myths, there are references to the Goddess of sleep. You learn of prayers, elaborate stories, and rituals attributed to her. Yet, we have completely forgotten her in the general space today," she shares.

As the discarded goddess exhorts mortals to slow down and sleep, she finds herself battling a system that thrives on distracting us from sleep. Venkateshwaran says, "What we go through every day as an urban resident, from the trash, traffic, events from personal to infrastructure related, feels insane. The only way to survive seems to sensorially overload ourselves to numbness," the 37-year-old points out.

Having opened in Pune in April, its next stop is Mumbai in early August - ‘The city that never sleeps' seems like the ideal destination. As we wrap up our conversation, Venkateshwaran remarks, "If only we slowed down, and rested enough, we might even think up solutions for our problems." If only, we say.

Did You Know?

The Ancient Greeks worshipped Hypnos, the God of Sleep. They also practiced enkoimesis, or sleep incubation, as an accepted form of healing.
Source: National Institute of Health, India

ON August 6; 7.30 pm
AT Rangshila Theatre, Sathe's Restaurant, Aram Nagar Part 1, Versova, Andheri West.
LOG ON TO altshows.com
ENTRY Rs 300

62.6%
of people in Mumbai do not feel rested upon waking
Source: Survey by Wakefit

46%
of Indians get less than six hours of sleep every day
Source: Local Circles survey