Makarand Deshpande. Pic/Sneha Kharabe

While music has been integral to many Makarand Deshpande's works, there's a lot of curiosity around his new play, Patni. This is the first time the thespian has matched tunes, quite literally, with sitar and zitar maestro Niladri Kumar, leaving everyone wondering what he, an actor-director-playwright, is planning to do with Kumar, whose name has never been associated with theatre until now. Even as we sit at Prithvi café chatting over cups of their famous kawa, we are interrupted more than once by his actor friends, the likes of Rajit Kapoor and Divya Dutta, all wanting to know, what Deshpande is up to.