Some anecdotes from life

It was a river of emotions that flowed at Ranga Shankara. Theatre enthusiasts were in for a treat recently as they got to watch two Kannada plays — ‘Shraddha’ and ‘Stainless Steel Paathregalu’, directed by Kiran Vati. The cast comprised Ganesh Shenoy, Pachi Ravichandra, Deepa Ravishankar, Kiran Vati, Keerthi Bhanu, Somayaji, Sunil Kumar and Satish KS.

The two plays had a common theme — a son’s perception of his parents during the growing-up years, which was narrated on the days of the respective parent’s death anniversary. While ‘Shraddha’ was based on a short story by Srinivasa Vaidya, ‘Stainless...’ was based on Vasudhenddhra’s story with the same name.

 The former explored the relationship between son and his father and the latter explored mother’s obsession with stainless steel utensils, as seen through the eyes of her son.

In ‘Shraddha’, the son remembers the persona of his father during his growing years. In the flashback, anecdotes come to life and one is shown how the father handles his family, especially his son.

A fierce patriot and a follower of Lokamanya Tilak, he raises his son based on Tilak’s morals, which is displayed hilariously in the play. The intrinsic affection of the father comes to the fore towards the end of the play as the son realises how unfair his perceptions and judgements of his father had been.

On the other hand, ‘Stainless Steel Paathregalu’ depicted a mother's obsession with stainless steel utensils, as seen through the eyes of her son.

The story went 30 to 40 years back, where a women had fetish love for stainless steels.

A young wife, who had been brought up in a bigger town enters her husband's home and finds to her dismay that there were no stainless steel utensils. She vows to build up her collection of shiny utensils and starts buying them with the money she manages to save or some times even buying on credit.

Her obsession with the shiny metal utensils leads to hilarious situations, sometimes funny and other times embarrassing. As the story reaches its climax, the son reveals the fate of his mother's prized collection. Evoking mixed emotions, both the plays made the audience cry and laugh, who found a connection with the characters effortlessly.