Recently I was at Gurukul for their ongoing show of Bukhyacha, a comedy revolving around the themes of capitalism, communism and a lot of misunderstanding. It was an adaptation, a very complex story made more so by the fact that there was a double role for the lead actor. Performed on stage, in real time, a simultaneous double role is something worth a watch. And the play was able to draw enough laughs even with a maze of a story splashed with so much symbolism of text book economic theory it made me look back and review the audiences.

There were a lot of young people (Gurukul draws a major number of Tribhuwan University crowd, especially the literature majors, besides other college going students), middle aged and old people coming seemingly from all kinds of back grounds, on motorcycles, on cars, on public transport or on foot. There was even a few kids watching in front of me who presumably would have understood little of what the play was all about, but had no reservations laughing along with the whole hall at some of the slap stick moments (the part where a doctor inadvertedly inflicts, time after time, a syringe on the backside of an unsuspecting guy, instead of the patient was classic).

The variety of people Gurukul brings in for its production is in itself an interesting watch, a reflection of its growing popularity among Kathmanduites for an evening of entertainment.

I was one of those people who did not exactly know what theatre is like and therefore with the pre conceived notion one gets from popular movies and such (showing theatre masses as boring aristocrats or the geeky side hero who has lost out on the girl the moment he takes her to a play), I was reluctant of the medium.

The turnaround came when I won free tickets to “Tara Baaji Lai Lai”, a play being staged at Gurukul from a radio show. I thought, why not? The play was so funny, so uproariously hilarious, that I wanted more than its length of one and a half hours (which at the start had made me think: am I going to survive this thing without being given a chance to walk out?)

After that I have been a more or less regular part of the audience there. And every time I go for the past three odd years the crowd has been getting bigger and bigger. The performances are lively, the lights and setting have been getting better as I presume, so has been the money. I have heard there is another stage at Biratnagar that Gurukul hosts for plays often times. This is to me is positive signs for arts in general in Nepal. And every time I hear someone attach our films to reflect upon the sorry state of our arts, I tell them to go watch a Nepali play.

Chiya-Pasaley loves tea and writes about conversations that originate along the hours spent on drinking many cups of it. Besides that he is curious about many things and especially the rural-urban divide, and the coming of modernization to Nepal. He writes on the mundane and the very fantastic, and everything in between.