Anupam Kher is back on stage after a gap of a few years with Jaane Pehchaane Anjaane, a play that mixes humour and music to examine loneliness and relationships. The production, written and directed by Gajendra Ahire, is in the middle of a 45-day tour of the United States and Canada.
Stardom without the ivory tower
Speaking to PTI during a break from a script reading session, Kher said he does not treat his public image as a load to carry. “I do not carry the burden of Anupam Kher on my shoulders,” he said. The actor added that his star persona would begin to look isolated if he stayed away from ordinary spaces—a lobby with a bread-and-butter counter, a sushi bar or a bus. In his telling, living in an ivory tower gives loneliness a frightening edge, and he does not live that way. “I live a very normal life,” Kher said.
A musical first
Kher described the play as his first attempt at staging a musical. It follows a widow, a widower, a young paying guest and a woman coping with a mid-life separation in a present-day middle-class neighbourhood, touching three generations: elders living apart from their children, those in middle age and the young.
The actor believes the stage connects with audiences abroad because Indians living outside the country carry a strong emotional bond with it. A familiar story performed by a known actor, he said, makes the viewer feel closer to both the person and the subject.
Four decades on stage
The new production is part of a longer theatre practice. Across four decades, Kher has appeared in works such as Saalgirah, Kuch Bhi Ho Sakta Hai and Mera Woh Matlab Nahi Tha opposite Neena Gupta. He said that after doing Shakespeare, Brecht and stylised plays, he now prefers plays “easily identifiable” to an audience—a father in the hall should be able to say, “This is my story.”
Jaane Pehchaane Anjaane also brings Swaroop Sampat back to theatre after almost twenty years. In the US, the play is being presented by Star Promotion Inc, the Houston-based company of Rajendra Singh.
The larger subject
- Format: a musical with humour, built around loneliness and relationships.
- Characters: a widow, a widower, a paying guest and a woman after a mid-life separation.
- Span: three generations in a middle-class neighbourhood.
- Tour: 45 days across the US and Canada.
For Hindi cinema readers, the play’s subject is not only theatrical. Kher links the story to what he calls a loneliness epidemic, driven by mobile phones and the internet. Smiles and hugs, he said, have been replaced by emojis, and the world has lost a certain amount of human touch. A stage production about that loss is a return to the live, shared experience where that touch can still be found.
Source: The Times of India
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