Mareez

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.

Apurva Avsar

The Spiritual Mentor of Mahatma Gandhi

Apurva Avsar — meaning 'a rare occasion' — is a Gujarati biographical drama based on the life and teachings of Shrimad Rajchandra (1867–1901), the Jain philosopher, poet, mystic, and social reformer whom Mahatma Gandhi called his spiritual guide and refuge in moments of crisis. Born in Vavaniya, a small village near Morbi in Gujarat, Rajchandra recalled his past lives at the age of seven. He became a master of poetry, Shatavadhana (the feat of simultaneously tracking a hundred different tasks), and astrology. His fame spread across the country — yet he renounced it all, concentrating on self-restraint and the pursuit of liberation from the cycle of births and deaths. Against his own will, he married and entered business, which flourished across India and beyond, but his hours remained consumed by spiritual inquiry. Wanderers and seekers visited him constantly. The play brings together three towering figures of Jain spiritual history on a single stage — Acharya Hemchandra (11th century), Avdhut Anand Ghanji (17th century), and Shrimad Rajchandra (19th century) — tracing 2,500 years of a living philosophical tradition. Three actors perform fifteen characters in a theatrical challenge that moves from Rajchandra's childhood visions through his meetings with Gandhi in Mumbai in 1891, their searching correspondence while Gandhi was in South Africa, and Rajchandra's final renunciation. Dramatized by Raju Dave and Manoj Shah after a year and a half of research, the play premiered at Prithvi Theatre, Mumbai on 28 February 2007. It has since been performed across India and in the United States, including at the Jain Center of Southern California. A Hindi adaptation by Prayas Dave followed the same year. The subject matter is drawn from the everyday texture of society — the treatment is realistic, so that any common person can relate to how Jain culture has shaped Indian heritage, religion, language, literature, and philosophy in ways both visible and profound.

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.

Huto and Huto Oh Yaa!

An Ideas Unlimited production directed by Manoj Shah, featuring Chirag Vohra.

Bombay Flower

The Untold Story of Ruttie Petit and Muhammad Ali Jinnah

A tribute to the legendary Parsi theatre — Bombay Flower tells the astonishingly daring story of Ruttie Petit (1900–1929), the fiercely independent daughter of Sir Dinshaw Petit, second baronet, who at eighteen married the era's most divisive political figure: Muhammad Ali Jinnah, a man more than two decades her senior. Given the sobriquet 'Bombay Flower' by Sarojini Naidu, Ruttie's exuberance fills the first half of the play — her rebellion against family, faith, and Parsi society to marry for love. In the second half, shunned by her parents and increasingly isolated by Jinnah's consuming political ambitions, she becomes an embittered woman who finds solace in theosophy, opium, and solitary wanderings across Europe. She died at twenty-nine. Written by Geeta Manek and drawn from Sheela Reddy's Mr and Mrs Jinnah: The Marriage That Shook India, the play took four years to develop. It began as a one-woman show before Manoj Shah brought in Jinnah, then Ruttie's parents, his sister Fatima, and their friend Kanji Dwarkadas. Bhamini Oza Gandhi leads as Ruttie, with Vishal Shah as Jinnah. The play premiered to a full house at the Experimental Theatre, NCPA on March 26, 2023 — an NCPA co-production. Bombay Flower is dedicated to Parsi theatre, which Manoj Shah discovered to be the pioneer of both Gujarati and Urdu theatre during his research for Master Phoolmani in 1999. It asks a question that remains relevant: why would an intelligent, sensitive young woman from a privileged background risk everything for a man whose world was entirely different from hers?