There is a line in the Robert Burns poem, To a Mouse, which reads, "The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry." It insinuates that no matter how meticulously you might plan an event, there is always a chance that external factors will come in the way of how you envisioned things would turn out to be. That seems to be the premise behind a new online performance that is being staged for the first time this weekend, as part of the line-up for the Ranga Shankara Theatre Festival. It's called Lunch Girls, and deals with four friends who try to set up a lunch date, except that something or the other keeps coming up and the plan doesn't materialise.

Quasar Thakore Padamsee, who's directed it, tells us that the entire performance consists of a series of 120 phone calls. He says, "It's a modern play in terms of its format, which is in keeping with the current digital age where we have rapid conversations. It also sums up our times since there is nothing more socially distanced than a phone conversation."