Geli Ekvees Varsha: a soul-searching experience

“All in all, you’re just another brick in the wall…,” kept reiterating

Floyd

. We heard him back in school. Then, we heard him again, like “retro”, back in those unpretentious days of early youth, almost certain about designing our identities and not succumbing to the predetermined mandates of living. Rebellion was the thing. But finally, we woke up, and the utopian dreams died. There was no time for any Elysian visions.

Natak Company’s

Geli Ekvees Varsha

is a perfectly-crafted mockery at our life choices, existential crises, and the many societal prescriptions of probity.

Breaking the fourth wall with an organic ease, the protagonist Amey Wagh deserves to be lauded for a power-packed performance as the young boy with questions, and anxieties. As he crawls through the metaphoric traps to find his inner calling, he is also battling a troublesome identity crisis. “I’m not gay, I’m not leftist, I’m not an orthodox

Brahmin

, I’m not

Dalit

, I’m not socio-economically deprived, I’m not schizophrenic…but does that mean I have no problems in life?” are some hard-hitting, yet highly relevant and relatable concerns that Wagh throws open.

It is difficult to sum up the plot in words; the performance is almost formless and abstract. However, it does not lack purpose and character, and that is the beauty of

Dharmakirti

Sumant’s writing and Alok Rajwade’s intelligent direction. For every twenty-something, standing at the threshold of planning a “secure and rewarding” life ahead, this play will strike a chord. And for the others, the show would mean a bittersweet time-travel, back to the good-old college days. Right from getting naturalised to terrorist activities, to questioning primal instincts, the urge to watch porn, the rat race to pursue a lucrative career, and the lure of drugs: the narrative encapsulates it all. The biggest victory of Geli Ekvees Varsha is its resonance with the youth, which comes from its on-the-face and real treatment. Siddharth Menon is bang-on as he personifies the dark, extremist force that exploits the vulnerabilities of Wagh’s character. The play leaves a hang-over, for days on end, following the performance. It is potent and reflective; a heartful watch!

- Ketaki Latkar