The fact that he may not reach out to scores doesn't deter him from playing his part, "responsibly" and "sensitively." After all, that's what a real artist must do, smiles Alakhnandan, theatre director, poet, playwright and co-founder of Bharat Bhavan's Rangmandal. The director is here for the TFT Winter National Theatre Festival with Charpai, a play that's been a hit with audiences all over the country. "The play reflects the lower middle-class and its problems - financial stress, emotional upheavals, fragmentation of the social fabric. Unlike what is projected -- great purchasing power, economic progress, a sense of joy...it's only for a select few. There's a class which really hasn't moved forward, it's still grappling to get the basics. If there are loans available, where are the means to repay,'' Alakhnandan, who formed the theatre group Nata Bundele in Bhopal in '87 says there are enough feel-good comedies happening on stage and the need is to reflect on real issues through theatre. Even in cinema, he rues, there's this artificial happiness created all around, with most characters looking and behaving like NRIs, not connected to the roots or reality. "There can't be only heroes, common people have to be reached out to and the impact then multiplies,'' believes Alakhnandan.

Charpai revolves around a middle-class family groaning under financial stress. There is no dialogue among three generations despite living under the same roof. Fragmentation of the social fabric, under cramped closeness born of necessity and poverty hits hard and demolishes the myth of an ideal, happy joint family. The play explores the complexities of a lower middle-class family comprising a retired man, his wife, their son and daughter-in-law and two adolescent grandchildren. All grumble and whine, betraying the sense of failure from their inability to provide themselves with a decent living. The realistic space denotes the suffocation and hurt caused by relationships and their incapacity to escape.