Naseeruddin Shah, Ratna Pathak Shah bring old world charm to Delhi

It was a treat for Delhiites as Naseeruddin Shah and Ratna Pathak Shah performed their play Old World at multiple venues in NCR this weekend as a part of the Delhi Theatre Festival. Adapted from Russian playwright Aleksei Arbuzov’s play that was set in the post-World War II USSR, this play directed by Arghya Lahiri discusses the lives and desires of old people, who are often neglected by their families.‘YOU ARE OBSESSED WITH MY AGE’In the play, Shah portrays Rodion, the medical head of a luxury health resort in Ranikhet, while Pathak embodies Lydia, a visitor to the sanatorium. In one scene, when Lydia tells Rodion that she ran around in the snow trying to retrieve a chai tapdi, he asks, “You ran around in the snow with a chaiwala? Are you crazy? You did this at your age?” Ratna responds, “You are obsessed with my age. Old age is boring, but that’s the only way to live long – ask us Parsis.” Rodion counters, “There is nothing great about a long life. An interesting life is what counts.”In another scene, Lydia, a former actress, talks about the trauma of losing her son in the Bombay riots. “He had been selected for the NDA. He loved his country.After his disappearance, I began to feel that everything on stage – love, laughter, suffering, death, especially death was all bloody makebelieve. To crack the same old jokes I used to find funny, over and over again? I couldn’t bear it. If there’s any violence, I couldn’t bear a sight of it. That is where art should stop. It’s all pretend, no? I quit theatre because I could not pretend any longer.”During the performance that had the audience sighing, laughing, and cheering, it was Naseeruddin Shah’s impromptu bhangra on stage that drew the loudest whistles of the night.