About The Event
Every day, her mother asks, "Kheyechish?" "Have you eaten?" Every day, she growls in response. But today, the truth spills out. She has not eaten. Not just today, but for days.
Rs. 18k a month. Rs. 11.5k swallowed by rent. The rest stretched thin across groceries, transport and unpaid rehearsals where dinner is often the only compensation. But tonight there is no rehearsal. No free dinner. Just a day where everything seems to be going wrong, one thing after another.
It has been a year since she last had Alu Posto and Phena Bhaat, ironically dishes born from famine. Determined, she heads to the store. Carefully, she picks her ingredients, no more, no less. But when the bill is tallied, she realises she cannot afford the comfort she came looking for.
She leaves empty-handed.
And now, she tells this story as she cooks for us.
"If we broke folks no longer turn up where food is laid out, they may think we do not need anything. But if we come and cannot buy, they will know how it is."
Kheyechish? is a live theatre work in English and Hindi, with a tasteful dash of Bangla, that integrates live cooking as a central dramaturgical device. Inspired by Bertolt Brecht's poem The Shopper, the piece examines contemporary urban precarity, artistic labour, and the politics of consumption through an intimate, audience-facing form.
This play was made with the support of the Niloufer Sagar Alumni Production Grant (Drama School Mumbai) & this show is supported by Yash Devnani and The Sargam Project
Credits
Written & directed by - Meghna Roy Choudhury
Cast - Meghna Roy Choudhury, Dhanesh Gopalkrishnan
Crew - Utkarssh Babbar, Sagar Dahale
