Inside Out -- Bharat Dabholkar

Inside Out -- Bharat Dabholkar

No creativity can match the high of watching people break their bones with a few hearty laughs, says Bharat Dabholkar

It's a revue -- a series of take-offs on political and social events, panning everything people have felt strongly about in recent times. "I had done a few of them long back. It's an old concept, in a whole new context."

And the new context is?
The themes are based on everything and everybody relevant now -- from air hijacks to cricket to divorce. "There's a spoof on marital life, called Shubh Divorcecam, which is a celebration of divorce. I'm sure many people will relate to something like that."

But more than anything else, the man behind Bottoms Up! and the utterly-butterly Amul hoardings is willing to stretch his ideas to ridiculous, sublime limit to extract a few hearty laughs from the audience.

"The money goes to the producer's pocket, not mine. I love to see people laugh at what I create. It's a high." And a first-hand one at that. "I never see my plays. I peep through a hole from backstage to see people breaking their bones laughing." He doesn't watch the works of other playwrights either. "I tend to gush over any play I see and come back with an inferiority complex," Dabholkar says, rather matter-of-factly.

So, he tends to look for -- and stick to -- the highs. Forget about serious art. He has no such committment.
"I tried my hand at serious theatre, but my audience told me I wasn't cut out for it. They would tell me `Why are you doing this?' I trusted their judgement and stuck to what I'm best at." About eight years ago, Dabholkar directed a play called Purush, a story about a rape victim's trauma. How much more `serious' can one get?

Doesn't it ever get monotonous though?
"For me, theatre is fun. It's like reliving my college days, when sitting in the canteen and making fun of people was life. After you enter a profession and excel at that, people share intellectual sneers, not inane laughs, with you." And for many, his revues serve exactly that purpose.

But what about experimenting with content even for fun?
"My plays don't lack experimentation. I take up new situations in every play. People won't accept me if I don't tickle new funny bones in them. My job is to entertain, which is not that easy."

Besides, why would an adman who owns a cat, a bull dog, four turtles, a parrot, an aquarium full of piranha and a zen office not depend on experimentation to get his creative juices pumping?

-- SANJUKTA SHARMA