Apurva Avsar

Apoorav Khela

The Ecstatic Wanderer of Rajasthan

Apoorav Khela — meaning 'a wondrous play' — is the biography of Avdhoot Anandghanji, a 17th-century Jain mystical poet who dwelled in the forests of Rajasthan and whose name has been all but erased from the books of history. Anandghan — literally 'cloud of bliss' — was born as Labhanand, likely before 1624, and was initiated as a Svetambara monk in the Tapa Gaccha order under the name Labhavijaya. But monastic convention could not contain him. He became an avdhoot — an ascetic wanderer who had renounced all worldly attachments — and disappeared into the forests of Rajasthan, where his proximity to nature was said to pacify the beasts and make the trees sway in joy. His absence from monastic records suggests he was always an outsider, more mystic than monk. What survived is his poetry. Anandghan composed padas — devotional songs — in a mixed vernacular of Gujarati, Rajasthani, and Braj that were spontaneous, ecstatic, and radically non-sectarian. His Anandghan Chauvisi honours the twenty-four Jain Tirthankaras. His Anandghan Bahattari was transmitted orally and in manuscripts, its verses sometimes found alongside those of Kabir, Surdas, and Banarasidas. Mahatma Gandhi included one of his hymns in his prayer collection. His songs are still sung in Jain temples across India — and even appear in Digambara hymn collections, despite his Svetambara origins. The play, written by Dr. Dhanvant Shah and directed by Manoj Shah, is constructed from the anecdotes and oral traditions surrounding this enigmatic figure. Five actors — Ashok Parmar, Jay Upadhyay, Nimesh Dave, Manish Rohit, and Sagar Rawal — bring to life a man about whom barely any documented information exists. Kabir Thakore's set design and Uday Mazumdar's music carry the Rajasthani folk texture, while Rajesh Mandloi's language work ensures the dialect rings true. The play does not attempt a conventional narrative. It is, as its own programme notes describe it, 'an astonishing flight of happiness, beginning with anand and ending with Anandghan.'

Jal Jal Mare Patang

The Burning Kite — Life of Manilal Dwivedi

The story of Manilal Nabhubhai Dwivedi (1858–1898) — the philosopher, writer, and literary critic who blazed through forty years of life with an intensity that redefined Gujarati literature and introduced Western philosophy to Gujarat. Married at fourteen to a four-year-old girl. Professor of Sanskrit at Samaldas College, Bhavnagar. Founder of Priyamvada, India’s first women’s magazine. Invited to the Parliament of World Religions in Chicago in 1893 — the same event where Vivekananda gave his famous speech — but could not afford to attend; his paper on Hinduism was read by Virchand Gandhi in his absence. His Raja Yoga was praised by Edwin Arnold and later read by Mahatma Gandhi in a South African prison. Narmad, the founder of modern Gujarati literature, considered him his intellectual heir. The era of Gujarati literature from 1885 to 1905 is named after him: the Mani-Govardhan Era. Manoj Shah spent seven years researching before staging this play. Written by Mihir Bhuta and drawn from Dwivedi’s autobiography Atmavrittanta — compared to Rousseau’s Confessions — the production features backdrop paintings by Atul Dodiya, one of India’s foremost contemporary artists. It premiered on 28 February 2009 at NCPA and received an A-certificate from the Maharashtra Censor Board of Theatres for its frank depiction of Manilal’s personal life. The title translates as ‘the kite burns as it flies’ — a metaphor for a life that blazed brilliantly and briefly. Manilal died at forty, writing at his desk in Nadiad.

Lakshmi Poojan

Lakshmi Poojan is a Gujarati play in two acts — 2 hours 15 minutes with intermission — written by Uttam Gada and directed by Manoj Shah, with music by Kaniya, sets by Kabir Thakore, lights by Asmite Pathare, and a cast including Pratik Gandhi, Bhamini Oza Gandhi, Satchit Puranik and Trupti Thakkar. Produced by Ideas Unlimited. The destinies of Sonali and Viraj are tied together since they were children — by a single note of one song. That note haunts them for years. Two decades later, the same note brings them back to each other, and they fall madly in love. But — yes, there is the usual but — both their families are staunch enemies. So love is in peril, and has to survive the trials and tribulations of the story. Sounds familiar? This love story is startlingly different. It is a laugh riot, a roller-coaster ride as never seen before. The stage is teeming with strange and weird characters — more than twenty-two of them. The action moves from Nal Bazar to Nepean Sea Road to New York and back at breakneck speed. There is singing, dancing, fighting, breaking arms and legs, and breaking hearts. And, somewhere in all of it, there is a race to invent something that will change the face of the planet. All this — enacted by just four actors. Love survives. The music survives. And so does the planet.

Achalayatan

Rabindranath Tagore's Allegory of Freedom

Tagore's searing allegory of an ashram so rigid that even light is forbidden entry. A young student named Panchak, unable to cope with the dead weight of rules, peeks through a forbidden window and discovers a world outside — free, simple, alive. His encounter with the untouchables beyond the walls sets him on a path of self-discovery that challenges the very foundations of the institution. When the Guruji finally arrives, he does not repair the system — he breaks it open. Adapted into Gujarati by Giridhar Kripalani under the guidance of Kaka Kalelkar, this production was Ideas Unlimited's tribute to India's first Nobel laureate. Manoj Shah spent eight months — six in study, two in rehearsal — preparing the play, calling it one of Tagore's best crafted works. The production premiered at the five-day Tagore Festival in Kolkata at G. D. Birla Sabhagar, where it was the only Gujarati-language play presented — a bold choice that brought Tagore's most scathing critique of institutional orthodoxy back to his own city, in a language he never wrote in.

Socrates

Mukkadamo — Socrates Trial. A 90-minute Gujarati play, written by Deepak Soliya and directed by Manoj Shah, that returns to the Athenian court 2,400 years after Socrates' death and asks why the philosopher still refuses to leave us alone. Drawing on the writings of three of Socrates' contemporaries — the playwright Aristophanes, the philosopher Plato, and the military general Xenophon — the play assembles a portrait that no single source could give. The five cardinal virtues that anchored his teaching — courage, temperance, justice, piety, and wisdom — are not philosophical abstractions here but the framework of a man's death sentence. What makes this Socrates new on the Gujarati stage is its insistence that any work containing something eternal must be continually reinterpreted. Socrates' obsession with morality, freedom of speech, fearlessness, and self-examination is read here against Indian philosophy, finding parallels that shorten the distance between Athens and Ahmedabad. The play also takes a fresh look at the reality of his death — not as state execution alone, but as the most demanding of his own choices. Performed by Dharmendra Gohil, Chirag Vohra, Jay Upadhyay, Darshan Pandya, Pulkit Solanki, Disha Savla, Neelam Panchal and others, the production argues that Socrates' insistence on critical thinking is indispensable today — from school education and scientific research to political understanding. After many earlier plays on Socrates, this is the one that brings him home in Gujarati.

Gujarati Ni Asmita

Gujarat Ni Asmita is a poetic journey into the rich literary culture of Gujarat — from Gujarat, by Gujarat. Directed by Manoj Shah, the play moves across centuries to bring the great voices of Gujarati poetry and reform onto a single stage: Narsinh Mehta and Meera, Akho and Premanand, the Krishna-Sudama-Premanand triangle, Dayaram and his devotional verse, Dalpatram and his historic meeting with Forbes, Narmad with his fierce reformist prose, and Meghani with the folk songs of Saurashtra. The play projects these characters, their work, and their lives alongside the everyday people of Gujarat for whom they wrote. It is an epic, presented in a contemporary register — designed to help anyone with no or only a slight idea of Gujarati literature discover the gem of the past, without lecture or apology. The verse comes through in the language it was written in, and the staging trusts the audience to lean in and listen. Woven through is an outstanding musical score moving from Narsinh Mehta's bhajans to Meghani's lokgeet, the score itself a parallel narrative of how Gujarati identity has always been carried in melody. The whole evening is overall very entertaining — a celebration of what Gujarati has produced, and a quiet argument for why it must be heard again.