About The Event
We are delighted to launch new writing, dramatic readings of new plays by known, and less known, playwrights writing in English, Hindi, and Marathi!
We hope the programme will become a journey of discovery for audiences, and hugely valuable for writers.
About The Session:
Abhimanyu Acharya’s play – Vesha
‘Vesha’ is the story of a conflict between two heads of a Bhavai troupe (Gujarati Folk theatre form), a father and a son. On the same night, they both decide to stage different ‘Veshas’ (A role/A play). Father stages the Vesha of Asaait Thakar, the founder of the Bhavai form itself. It is set in the fourteenth century and shows how a transgression of caste identity was at the foundation of Bhavai. The son stages a modern Vesha, a story of two lower-caste cops and their encounter with a Patidar youth right after the violent Patidar agitation for reservation in Gujarat in 2015. The play oscillates between both the Veshas and probes into a fundamental question: How can one claim an identity without the stigma attached to it?
