Sasidhar | Blog

No I’m not talking about Sonia Gandhi nor how the fight for an Independent Telangana State is being waged. I’ll should write about it sometime though.

I’m talking about the play “Aapki Sonia” by Farooque Sheikh and Sonali Bendre that I went to watch this weekend. For starters, it rocked. To be frank, I did not expect Sonali (my first crush ! ) to act so well. She has always been regarded as an actress with a pretty face who can keep you interested on a 21inch screen (you know, considering retakes and all, she can get it right !). Theater is a whole different scene altogether, no retakes, no goofups, no stopping or stuttering…..and worst of all the audience isn’t very forgiving. She came out with flying colours to say the least. Farooque Sheikh is a seasoned stage artist, and my first hand experience just went on to prove it right. He is impeccable in his voice modulations, his timing and his expressions.

Aapki Sonia was played at the Shilpa-kala-vedica in Shilparamam at Hyderabad . It’s a sequel to another play by Farooque Sheikh and Shabana Azmi named Tumhari Amrita. While Tumhari Amrita deals with love, Aapki Sonia is all about hatred. Very well written (by Javed Siddiqui who also wrote “Tumhari Amrita”) and directed (by Salim Arif), it will surely do well across India.

Although it did start more than half hour later than it was supposed to, the biggest problem I had was with the turnout. Hyderabad has always been the cultural capital of Andhra Pradesh and these events are usually well received. The auditorum which could probably hold an audience of about 2000, was half empty. Agreed the ticket prices were somewhat steep (ya ya high profile actors and all that), the venue was on the outskirts(Hitech city is still considered outsikirts right?) of the city and it did rain(no, the weather forecast guys didn’t really predict it) pretty badly all evening. There should have been more advertising, or maybe they should have encouraged corporate bookings. Most companies nowadays have internal clubs with personalized interests (I know Google does, and so does Satyam), which don’t mind spending some money for these events.
All and all, good play. You should go and watch if its playing somewhere around you. And oh, theater in India is growing rapidly…..(just wanted to say it out loud )