No laughter in the Zoom Room

No one chooses glumness on a day meant to be merry and auspicious Yet here I was feeling exactly this Like most of the roughly 38000 members of my community in the city left bereft by no traditionally staged naatak to chortle overI love Parsi plays dearly aching at their absence over Navroze and in the same week Khordad Sal birthday of Zarathustra the Zoroastrian Christmas as it were This is the second year of such deprivation in the centuriesold history of the Parsi Gujarati play Lockdown has ruined theatre practitioners and equally dejected audiencesThe naatak evening is essential organic and intrinsic to Navroze To go without it is absolute torture It simply emasculates the occasion paralyses it with gloom Sorry plays peered at on a laptop flashed onscreen with a cold click of the keyboard canrsquot cut itDinshah Daji breezing through his song and dance routine in the 1960 musical Hasa Has Pic courtesyMeher Marfatia Laughter In The HouseNo mouthing ldquononvegrdquo jokes or double entendre ditties in sync with beloved singing stars No standing ovations with ldquoOnce morerdquo hollers for adored actors Andmdashcritical for the khaatapeeta jaat we aremdashno munching homepacked ldquopora pavrdquo omelette sandwiches fished out from paper bags that crackled even ahead of the intervalA rare young dramatist writing in Gujarati Meherzad Patel partner and director Silly Point Productions says ldquoWe were set to perform Sherlock Homi in March last year and forced to shut shop in lockdown When we were about to do so this March on Jamshedi Navroze the second wave hit What I wrote in 2019 is effectively going to be performed in 2022 if wersquore lucky or 2023 the longest a script has taken to reach the stage We did Pretty Boman as a film last August Though well received it was astronomically expensive Things are tight with restrictions to shoot With a R5 lakh budget one can produce only so much in terms of quality and still not manage to compete with millions of dollarsrsquo worth of streaming content optionsrdquoRuby Patel takes centre stage in the Ladies vs Men qawwali finale of the Laughter in the House revue 2012 PicSooni TaraporevalaSad sad sad to be unable to assess the collective bellow of live audiences who not just expect corniness they crave it In Whistles in the Darkened Hall her Foreword to my book Laughter in the House 20Century Parsi Theatre Bachi Karkaria beautifully explainedmdashldquoIn Parsi history the end of farce would be ultimate tragedy The naatak is the most indelible mark of our childhood worked like a tattoo into and under our skin slipping to the nerve endings to rest inextricably in the folds of memoryhellip It replenished recharged rejuvenated our identity A seemingly timepass evening formed lifelong bonding a centrifugal force drawing a whole community into its own quintessential core Donrsquot underestimate what the Parsi naatak once stood for Or undermine how much else will fall with the curtainrdquoThe loss is as unforgivable for other communities After all the language of laughter is universal Elevated and celebrated with added gusto and glee when its phrases roll in a mother tongue wicked and witty enough to be appropriated by manyDanesh Khambata Danesh Irani and Sajeel Parakh with Pheroza Modi in Amar Akbar Akoori 2017 PicNarendra Dangiya NCPAldquoNothing in the world is more joyful than Parsi playsrdquo MF Husain told me years ago Having grown up in the KhetwadiGrant Road gullies the theninexile painter said ldquoI knew your comedies through neighbours and friends We had unforgettable rollicking times in play hallsrdquo Those were golden years for a genre strikingly both universal and unique The postIndependence decades belonged to the playwright giants Adi Marzban Pheroze Antia Dorab Mehta and Homi Tavadia Their work touched thousands of theatregoers thronging halls from Tata and Tejpal to Birla and Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan besides Patkar Sophia and Nehru A wide spectrum of people was bound together by the Parsisrsquo mother tonguemdashGujaratis Bohris and Khojas devoured these adroit Broadway or West End adaptationsBombay being the pulsing heart to which drama buffs flocked from Poona Surat and Navsari enterprising Parsis accommodated the boom The business of comedy was of great consequence What started as a happy readily accepted confusion of stage conventions Gilbert and Sullivan operettas and Victorian melodrama progressed to pure hysterical comedyAuditoriums exploded in roars of ldquoWaaaaahrdquo Thrilled viewers spilled accolades Halls rippled and rang with their surge of responses A constant bubble and boil brewed over erupting in ludicrous laughter induced by anything remotely fun The plotmdashsometimes weighty most times waferthin mdashwas not so much the point The wonder of the lines was The sparkle of the acting was The singularity of an unabashed Parsi ethos wasAttractive new titles either deliciously alliterative Fasela Firozeshah Gher Ghungro ne Ghotalo Tirangi Tehmul or riotously rhyming Utyu Tutyu Hasta Gher Vasta Sagan ke Vagan were regularly announced Tall wads of tickets crisply tore off on booking counters and House Full boards loomed large as excited audiences revisited favourite productionsBesides threeact plays variety musical revues were the rage Thodik Aisi Thodik Taisi showcased a hilarious Cancan number with Bomi Dotiwala Jimmy Pocha and Sam Kerawalla rubbing shoulders with Jerry Mason Americarsquos gypsy entertainer ldquoIt was hilariousrdquo recalls Dotiwala ldquoAdi grandly announced lsquoLadies and gentlemen please welcome the lovely dancing ladies of the Folies Bergere imported from Parisrsquo And out we popped outrageously with hairy legs and absurd anticsrdquo Anand Pai created what was literally a novel set for this revue when it opened at Birla Hallmdashshaped like an open book the turn of page parting the curtain to signal a fresh item on the programme The audience lapped up the idea Spontaneous gaffes would elicit unintended laughsmdashlike accordionist Goody Seervai crashing to the ground with one foot on the revolving stage when a ldquopagerdquo curled open before he dodged out of its waySpace for serious themes Not really Audiences reluctantly greeted Marzbanrsquos attempt at plays pushing beyond froth and frolic He did try to address issues of relevance If Mancherji Konna referred to the 1960srsquo IndoChina hostility Pakar Maru Puchhru fronted Panchayat politics Asha Nirasha examined grief and bereavement albeit paced with lighter momentsBut it was never easy going along this other track There was a clamour for unadulterated comic shenanigans Audiences rejected Asha Nirasha and were not entirely convinced about the euthanasia issue Marzban sensitively highlighted in Jeevan KhelIt needed the Indian National Theatre INT touch for audience approval that swallowed bitterer pills smoothly A dynamic association with INTmdashmemorably established by Damu Jhaveri and Rohit Dave boasting brilliant talents including Pravin Joshi Chandrakant Thakkar Arvind Thakkar and Tarak Mehtamdashmade noncomedy palatable The collaborative Parsi wing of INT garnered rave reviews for plays like Hello Inspector and Solmi January ni MadhraateAn unhealthy slump in writing and production followed the heady rsquo60s and rsquo70s Lesser authors succumbed to lazy plots layered thick with overdone koylagiri and mistaken identity imbroglios From the 1990s itrsquos been a steady slide Current naataks are generally pale rehashes trite mutations of their original inspirations Navroze offerings continue as a far cry from the smash successes that used to be staged yearlong after shows opened on NavrozeAt an NCPA rehearsal of Laughter in The House Dinyar Contractor had told me ldquoThink why comedy runs best It reminds everyone of characters with whom they find parallels within their circle I could cram 73 shows in 84 days of a lighter play like Hasta Ramta Jeevi Laiye But my Khel Khatarnaak suffered Letrsquos face it people come to the hall to blot out reality Comedy may be escapist Its quirkiness is identifiablerdquoFew plays now achieve the literary cachet and mass appeal of those from the pen of the last centuryrsquos ace authors Fewer display the sly humour or wild whoosh of mad wordplay eliciting endless whoops of delight from Parsis and nonParsis alike A leaner line trickles into auditoriums for the annual play Farces lack lustre their structure is weaker the puns limper the guffaws slower Ticket sales have thinned with the years taking away the commanding stage presence of confirmed comics of the naatakrsquos glory years who guaranteed a giggle a minuteThe Zoom Room kills cocreation and actoraudience collaboration that is the very hallmark of a naatak night Pandemic signals the death of palpable experiences Gone is the scope for adventurously conceived actor entries and exits Gone too the electric frisson of anticipation which generated murmurs and clapping before iconic performers barely stepped onstage Impossible for instance if Jimmy Pocha ldquothe Danny Kaye of Indiardquo were to jauntily ride a bicycle through the aisles in that typical manner he appeared amidst gathered fans As Meherzad Patel says theatres will eventually reopen but most artistes might have lost the will to wait and moved on to other avenues of creative expressionmdashldquoParsi theatre however might thrive because the community refuses to take things lying down and believes in recovering from this hit Audiences and actors are waiting for the day they come back to each other I miss the thrill of sitting at the tech box to watch people elbow other indicating lsquoThatrsquos so yoursquo Itrsquos not something a recorded show can ever emulate Imagine distancing with a seatrsquos gap Who will you nudgerdquoWho indeedAuthorpublisher Meher Marfatia writes fortnightly on everything that makes her love Mumbai and adore Bombay You can reach her at mehermarfatiamiddaycomwwwmeher marfatiacom