Sahi re Sahi - is absolutely Sahi !!!

Marathi theatre - reloaded, relived, recherished...

I saw this super hilarious marathi comedy drama - or naatak, as its called in marathi - "Sahi re Sahi" today with my family in the VasantRao Deshpande hall in Nagpur - which was jam packed like anything with people flooding like anything. I was glad in my mind that marathi theatre is still alive and kicking as compared to the drubbing suffered by marathi movies and literature , due to its glorious elder bothers bollywood, hollywood etc. Its really bad that marathi- which is basically my mother tongue and most of the people in the area is on a serious downhill, both in terms of usage as well as respect for consideration. And to think that we hail from the lands of the great P.L.Deshpande, Kusumagraj and other big wigs, is really a shame and part of it is because of the lack of interest shown by the generation X - teenagers and twenty somethings like me who aint really paying attention to the rich cultural heritage we are born with. Anyways even I was going to the play just because a friend of mine (Pravin) had insisted that its really worth the time and money, and he was right like anything. The show started at 6:30 PM and was about to last for 2 hours flat with an interval and the tickets were as high as 200 bucks - I was like... blimey ! Initially felt like as if this was daylight robbery since even multiplexes like Inox provide more material comforts at lower costs, but then after 2 hours I was about to change my entire view about theatres - and write this in my blog. A helluva laughter riot was in store which kept us all in splits, and in the end everyone was left asking for more.

The drama - directed by the legendary Kedar Shinde was starring the even more legendary actor - Bharat Jadhav who plays a quadrapole role leaving the audience absolutely in splits everytime he utters something or does any jig. Since its inception in the year 2002 has gone on to become the highest grossing marathi drama of all time in the country with 1654 (!!!) shows till date- including the one I saw... now thats something that I felt was really awesome. The other cast in the play involved some really witty dialogue delivery and really funny on the spot, live and spontaneous acting - all embedded in an amazing sense of co-ordination. The background score and sound effects were unbelievably great and held everyone in their seats and reduced everyone to tears - yeah.... the tears which come due to excessive laughter. Such was the magnamity of the comedy act, all the actors got a standing ovation at the end by the so famous audience of Nagpur, known for not appreciating art as such.

Script in brief

The play revolves around Madan Sukhatme (played by the exceptionally talented Bharat Jadhav) who is a leading industrialist living with his wife Mira unaware of the fact that she is betraying him for his Personal assistant Aniket Raje. It happens on one fie day that Madan is killed by the trickster duo accidentally and they decide to dispose his body. Later on they come to know that Madan had made three wills - something really crazy indeed.... but in fact each is for the three inheritors - his first wife Manorama, his present wife Mira and his uncle Anna who took care of him in childhood. So far so simple. But here lies the catch. The absolutely whacky lawyer - Mr Lele tells all the three inheritors that the wills cant be brought into effect till he knows which is authentic since all the wills are signed without date on them, thus bringing into question the right way of distribution of property, bank balance, shares etc. All the greedy people then fall into a common trap where each plans to bring their own Madan Sukhatme to validate their claim for property - all look alikes , of course.

And this starts the great drama called Sahi re Sahi - (In marathi , the word "sahi" literally means signature in english, which is the prime thing everyone is aspiring to obtain from Madan).
Thus we have 3 fake Madans brought along with a great tango with the Real Madan himself - leading us to a visual and sonorous treat of enjoying Bharat Jadhav in 4 different charecters
who rock the stage like hell. The sheer synchronous act put up by the cast is really praise worthy as they leave no stone unturned to make our funny bone ache with pain. What happens in the end is something that I wont reveal since I "insist" that each one of the readers who understands marathi MUST go and see this for himself.

Overall, I will rate this play as 5/5 , since I beleive that the production team has achieved its goal of pure entertainment with supeme perfection. After "all the best" and "varhad nighalaya london la" I believe that "sahi re sahi" is really a pinnacle of paramount excellence which will shine high atop the ever increasing peaks of Marathi theatre.

A word about the awesome Bharat Jadhav

This guy really strides like a colossus on the marathi stage and has been its unconquered ruler for a decade now. Yet, none of the stardust has caught with this humble and down to earth human being. He attributes his success to the director of the play and the entire production and acting team which complement each other beautifully to put up the marvellous act. Its really a treat to watch his energetic and power packed performance on the stage. Its his great devotion to stage that he has got this unparalled success in this field, though he has aso got some wonderful opportunities in movies too, marathi and hindi both.

With Balasaheb Thakrey, Sachin Tendulkar, N Chandra , David Dhawan among the many in his star studded fan club, this brilliant and awesome actor has surely got a long way to go !!