Saurabh Nayyar’s ‘Golden Jubilee’: That ’70s show

A rich man’s loafer son saves a poor man’s daughter from goondas. He offers to drop her home. On the way, the woman, deeply indebted, looks at the man 17 times; smitten, the man looks at her 33 times. The two fall in love… They have now come to know each other well and, sitting in their own homes, sing the same songs — the verses perfectly in sync with each other’s lines.

Will the two get married? Of course. But ‘The End’ will elude them until they’ve undergone the rigmarole and done the entire routine of heartbreak, sad songs, the inevitable twist, and the fightback. The man’s rich father will want his son to marry a rich woman. There will be challenges and a villain before the father finally blesses his ‘bahu’.

This summation of the Hindi cinema of the 1970s and ’80s is at the core of ‘Ek Film Katha’ by Harishankar Parsai, whose satire has stood the test of time. ‘Golden Jubilee’, Saurabh Nayyar’s theatrical adaptation of this story, will be showcased at Delhi’s Shri Ram Centre of Performing Arts on June 22. In mid-July, the play will travel to Jaipur for a theatre festival and then to Mumbai, where the play was conceptualised two years ago and has since had several shows.

‘Golden Jubilee’ was the first production of Nayyar’s Jubilee Theatre Company. The idea was floated by actor Kumud Mishra. And Nayyar, director and actor (‘Bandish Bandits’ fame), jumped at it. He hails from Jabalpur, where Parsai lived and worked, and had done many plays based on his stories in his early theatre days. “I love his writing and agreed immediately,” he recalls.

Parsai’s piece is droll. It mocks Hindi film productions by dumbing down the melodrama and presenting the formulas film writers employ — predictable plot, damsel in distress, a lecherous villain — in a matter-of-fact way; the expression is deadpan. The play, however, Nayyar says, is anything but that. “It has turned out to be entertaining. ‘Ek Film Katha’ is Parsaiji’s satirical take on the ’70s and ’80s Hindi cinema, where a set pattern was followed by everyone. I tried to recreate those times.”

Nayyar brings his own flavour by adding characters such as the iconic Ramu Kaka, Suzy and Malti. Dialogues such as “Saara sheher mujhe Lion ke naam se jaanta hai” or “Kitne aadmi the?” find their match here, too, as the villain in ‘Golden Jubilee’ delivers a “big dialogue”, never failing to bring a smile to the audience’s face.

And yes, the play, too, has a song for every situation. Music director Shridhar Nagraj’s compositions evoke the style of OP Nayyar and RD Burman, promises Nayyar. “In our initial shows, there were 10-12 songs. But since the play was becoming too long, we had to cut a few songs — now there are seven, not very long, but essential to the play.” Nayyar wrote the songs, and the choreography was done by Niketa Saraf and Vedika Singh.

While the main element of the play is Parsai’s timeless writing, Nayyar has tried to incorporate elements that satirise the scenario. “Visually, I’ve used shadows, lighting, costumes from the ’70s, and period-appropriate hairstyles — all these elements bring the era alive,” he says.

Over the last two years, the play has become crisper and tighter, engaging audiences across age groups. “It took us around 8–10 shows to realise that people were talking about the play, and youngsters were coming back with their parents and grandparents to show them this play. It became popular through word of mouth.”

With Parsai being an important figure during Nayyar’s upbringing, satire is an integral part of his theatre — whether it is the musical ‘Naam Mein Ka Rakhwo Hai?’ or ‘Ghatnaayein’. However, he feels that the kind of nuanced satire we saw in the writings of Sharad Joshi or Harishankar Parsai is rare today.

With mainstream Hindi cinema still following every winning formula that comes its way, Parsai is sorely missed — and so is his ‘film katha’.