Drawn from the classics

Theatre person Aarushi Thakur, 27, of Jammu, thinks that the urge to create often gets more powerful than giving in to despair about conflicts around.

Her plays are adapted from the English classics and are enacted in English for a primarily Hindi and Dogri audience. This audience has not only accepted it, but has been clamouring for more.

Daughter of well-known theatre director Balwant Thakur, Aarushi never planned to enter the stage, though she often travelled with her father's theatre group, Natrang. In fact, it was the travelling that attracted her more than the acting. While studying international politics in London, she attended a theatre workshop at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA). "I realised then that I liked theatre after all. In fact, I could work 24 hours without getting exhausted," she recalls about her stint at RADA.

She then got involved in various theatre productions. What about the absence of any formal theatre training? "Well, it would have been a good idea to be formally trained, but I feel that these lacunae have made me more cautious, and led me to work doubly hard since I didn't have the backing of any formal coaching. My father did introduce me to various books on theatre." She began with Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, which she feels is her best production so far. The story played and replayed a thousand times in her head like a movie while she went through the text.

After adapting and scripting it, she selected a part of the novel and took a huge leap of faith by putting up the play in English. This play, performed by amateurs who are not very comfortable with English, received widespread appreciation.

"When dad said, 'Iske aur shows karwaenge (we will have more shows of this), I knew I had achieved something. That was my biggest push," Aarushi says.

What Aarushi had achieved was unique in Jammu. No one had performed from the classics in English for the stage. The encouragement she received from the theatre fraternity spurred her. She picked up her next production, Rashomon, based on the film by Akira Kurosawa where the characters provide different versions of the same incident. Again, Aarushi came up with her version, and she had characters playing three wives with their perspectives. It wasn't surprising that she was discouraged from taking up this work. "I was not concerned about the success of my play. I had no yardstick to measure myself. I simply believed in what I was doing. That led me to take unconventional topics," she says.

She chose Jammu's Amar Mahal, a beautiful building located on a hillock, as her venue, with the summer breeze adding to the magic. The play's success went beyond her imagination, especially so when some remarked that the play was good enough to be performed in Broadway. "Thankfully, all the praise didn't get into my head, all due to my dad, who kept me grounded."

After this success, Aarushi staged Dickens's Oliver Twist and Roald Dahl's Matilda, both with children. She, of course, was not happy with doing only adaptations, and wrote her play, Let My Country Awake, a hard- hitting piece on child abuse. "Though my dad was against doing this play with kids, I felt I was doing the right thing. We, as theatre people ,need to raise these issues." Henry and Ann came next, and this was executed after six months of research, based on the love story of King Henry VIII and Ann Boleyn. About a year ago, Aarushi made a conscious decision to direct plays in Hindi.

Seeing people interested in theatre, she felt the use of Hindi would attract an even larger audience. This time she picked up Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. This was her first comedy in Hindi, and it took her more than three months to prepare. The group worried whether the audience would laugh at all. But, laugh they did, and each show was packed. So, where is Aarushi headed next? "I need to fall in love with a script and then start work on it," she says.

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