How can a seeming suicide be distinguished from an intentional crime? The death we discuss here originally happened in Milan, Italy. A man died falling off the window of a police investigation room. What can possibly connect his fall to a deliberate push and not a jump? — The lack of a vakra rekha, a trajectory. That’s where the play, Vakra-rekha, gets its name from Hindi. “The title takes after a crucial revelation in the plot,” said Shiv Prateek, its director.

Prateek’s piece presents Italian playwright Dario Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist in an Indian light. “We have translated the English text to Hindi and have one character more than the number in the actual play. With some changes to the ending, the course of our play sticks to the original narrative.” Fo’s story is based on the Piazza Fontana bombing of 1969. With strong political undertones, Fo’s plays were some of the most widely performed plays in an artiste’s lifetime. The performance focusses on the character of the Maniac, who through a series of disguises, finds out the truth behind the anarchist’s ‘accidental’ death.