An elephant’s journey

History attests that in 1551, an

elephant

made the journey from Lisbon to Vienna. Solomon – the elephant, and his mahout had already made a long sea voyage from Goa and spent a couple of years standing about in a pen in Lisbon, before setting off for Valladolid as a present from the king to the Archduke, who travelled with him to Italy by ship and across the Alps to Vienna.

In the

play

,

Gajab Kahani

, which is loosely based on Nobel laureate Jose Saramago’s The Elephant’s Journey, Solomon and his mahout Subhro proceeded through various landscapes at an unhurried pace, attended by various functionaries and military men, and meeting along the way with villagers and townsfolk, who variously interpret the sudden enigma of an elephant entering their lives.

The artistes of the play are Geetanjali Kulkarni, Ajeet Singh Palawat, Nakul Bhalla, Alap Vaidya, Anand Potdukhe, Anuj Deshpande, Ashish Pathak, Hitesh Porje, Hrishikesh Pujari, Jeevak More, Prasad Kshirsagar, Shalva Kinjavadekar, Shivani Sonar, Siddharth Mahashabde, Tushar Tengale and Vivaan Vaidya.

Gajab Kahani is adapted by Amitosh Nagpal and directed by Mohit Takalkar. It is scheduled to take place at

Ranga Shankara

on November 17 (7.30 pm).