“Four is too even, three is less, five is just right...” Physiotherapist Dr Pooja Pandey Tripathi quipped and laughed. The reason for this declaration is the question about her two plays Ladies Compartment and Men’s Department, both to be played this weekend that feature five women and five men respectively. How about six, we ask? “It is too much to cope,” she retorts. She is, by her own admission, not a stickler for the rules, a director who doesn’t insist on her actors attending rehearsal if the cast is otherwise engaged!
Clearly, its her passion for theatre that draws the actors in. Tripathi is known too for her funny bone in the plays which she not only writes, directs but also acts in. Ladies Compartment is a play she wrote three years ago about five ladies travelling in the ladies compartment of the Delhi metro. There is a corporate jetsetter in a troubled marriage with a gay husband, a small town idealistic girl turned socialite with a cheating husband, a lonely elderly widow who relishes her role as an agony aunt and travels in the metro just to be with people, and a maid who, rather predictably, is in the depths of despair but rises above it, with her spunk. To these four, add a female Haryanvi cop, played by Tripathi, who walks into the compartment and stays on to offer advice and solutions; and a eunuch, essayed by Imran Pasha, the narrator of the story who highlights his story of exclusion, isolation and discrimination.
Men’s Department
The 30th run of the 70-minute play validates Tripathi’s bent for theatre and her penchant for delivering social messages. Ladies Compartment, in fact, goes beyond addressing women’s problems and their issues, and explores the challenges posed by life in general. “Through the play I was talking of life and what it presents,” she explained. Rooted in her person is an unwavering belief that life is a series of moments to be ‘lived’ rather than rushed through and problems faced are more or less the same no matter which strata of society one belongs to.
To counter the opinion - “I am not a feminist looking solely into women’s issues” - she wrote Men’s Department highlighting a class reunion of - what else - five classmates who meet after fifteen years. These friends indulge in confession time after getting in ‘high spirits’.
Again, they are a diverse lot: a bachelor who admits to loneliness with no one to ‘take care’ of him in sickness, a family man who is the sole breadwinner struggling to provide for his family, a wannabe actor who is in Mumbai eking out a living in the hope of getting the dream entry into filmdom, the ubiquitous shop boy ‘Chotu’ whose desire to go back to his village surpasses the temptations of the city, and Praveen whose story is based on the life of Tripathi’s close friend.
“He is in a bad marriage in which his wife beats him up and has thrown his parents out of the house,” she said. While in real life the friend is in UK and in the marriage for the sake of his kids - “the custody of kids usually go to the mother”; In the play, Tripathi has ended the marriage with happy consequences for the husband.
This play has had 14 shows so far and highlights the fact that usually men - unlike women - don’t like to talk of their problems.
But Tripathi herself is willing to talk about issues plaguing the society. The abysmal lack of fun and play in a student’s life is captured in her play Within Humans meet KaYa wherein two Goddesses - Kamini and Yamini - dictate frivolity and discipline in actions. “Kids and teenagers have to incorporate play in their daily routine,” the doctor rues. She cites the example of a 13-year-old whom she is treating for Forward Head Syndrome.
Without active lifestyles, youngsters are getting health issues and “forty-year-olds are becoming patients”. Holding parents responsible for putting undue pressure on their children, Tripathi is working on a new play titled PTM which will debut on Republic Day at Ranga Shankara. “What happens in Parents Teachers Meetings is a reflection of what is wrong in our education system.”
The excitement of performing once again at Ranga Shankara is evident in her voice. From being tricked into an audition by her husband in 2011 to being a veteran theatre performer, Tripathi is yet to rest on her laurels. 200 plus plays including the famed Tumhari Amrita not counting.
What: Ladies Compartment
& Men's Department
When: Jan 19, time: 5pm, 7pm
Where: Atta Galatta
