A warped vision

The play brings out the arrogance of a famous writer who reconstructs the characters of his wife and her sister differently from what they are in his fiction. He twists and turns their relationship to paint them in colours they would have to live with, as 'characters' do not die while the writer does

REVIEW

Mahesh Elkunchwar is a powerful figure in contemporary Indian theatre. Though he writes mainly in Marathi, his plays have been translated into many Indian and international languages because his works have an universal appeal. Atmakatha (1988) is a complex play probing the psyche of Anantrao Rajadhyaksha, a famous creative writer. Padatik and Rikh jointly presented the Hindi adaptation of the play in Kolkata.

Rajadhyaksha (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) is dictating his autobiography to Pradnya (Anubha Fatehpuria) who is researching his works for her thesis. Rajadhyaksha lives alone, and as he dictates to the young woman, layers of his life begin to unfold, blurring the lines between his creative writing based on reality and his autobiography veiled with untruths. Pradna questions him, criticises and teases, forcing him to encounter the ghosts of the past and present. They include his estranged wife Uttara (Chetna Jalan) and her sister Vasanti (Sanchayita Bhattacharya) with whom he had a brief affair and even sired a son, though he refuses to accept him as his own.

The play brings out the arrogance of a famous writer who reconstructs the characters of his wife and her sister differently from what they are in his fiction. He twists and turns their relationship to paint them in colours they would have to live with, as 'characters' do not die while the writer does. The ghosts of the past — Devdutt, the young writer he was jealous of, Uttara, his wife whom he wants to meet desperately, Vasanti, the girl he had the affair with, have left him to cope with the ghosts of his past — creative and real to live in loneliness.

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