The Play-Wright Up: Barff (2016)

Crux

A doctor, attending a professional event at Srinagar, opts to play the Samaritan to his taxi driver, on learning about his sick infant, despite the latter’s dissuasion. After an uphill journey of a couple of hours, amidst heavy snowfall, they land up at the home of this destitute family living in a ghost-town; faraway Kashmir. They are gladly received by the driver’s wife and the couple makes the doctor feel at home. The doctor finds the homemaker as remote and as fretful as her surroundings and the driver, a caring but henpecked husband. After an exchange of pleasantries, he proceeds to treat their only child and finds something amiss. It gets his goat. He confronts them, in disbelief but discovers that the family has been flogging a dead horse. The snowfall intensifies, meanwhile. He tries to escape the setting but can`t. Trapped in company, their face-off continues through the night. The snowfall ends with the characters making sense of their make-believe worlds.

Brief

Summarising Barff (Snow) in a song.

“Yeh haseé wadiyaá - Yeh khula aasmaá,

Aa gaye hum kahaá - Aey mere saajnaá,

In bahaaró mein dil ki qali khil gayi,

Mujhko tum jo mile - Har khushi mil gayi…”

[Roja, 1992]

Debrief

A psychosocial drama would be betrayed of its essence, if the story be known. So, just enjoy the account, here and Barff, at a theatre near you.

Okay. What do we get here?

A warm-hearted doctor, a talkative taxi-driver, a quiet child, a possessive woman and Kashmir, snowed in on a chilly winter night.

Cool.

Barff opens up with an idyllic setting and sets the stage for a supernatural thriller. It gradually leads to a family drama and keeps meandering in the realms of the unknown. That’s when the motor-mouth driver mouths a simple dialogue and Barff, suddenly, chugs into a reality tunnel.

‘Duniya ke saare Sach, Yakeen par khade hote hain. Aap Yakeen karke dekho, Sach apne aap bunn jaata hai. Varna Sach….apne aap mein kuch hota nahi hai, Janaab!’   

Thats sums up Barff.

Believe is a seven letter word. Seven is a remarkable number.

Colours in a rainbow - Days in a week - Liberal arts - Wonders - Masters - Continents - Seas - Sages - Sins - Heavens are all in Sevens.

Believe is not a seven letter word. Believe is the word.

Believing is Seeing. Seeing is not Believing.

Thats sums up Barff.

Sample this. What would you do, as an atheist, if God appears one day? Would you start believing in him, right away?

I leave it to you, how you perceive it or rather Believe in it.

Barff, is to the Indian audience what Ratatouille (2007) and The Polar Express (2004) is to the global audience. The core message remains the same albeit, everything else differs.

The narrative of Barff is as unpredictable as the weather, in which it’s set and leaves the audience spellbound (I remember having forgotten to give nasty looks to the lady, next seat, who was continuously recording the proceedings on her cell). The plot, screenplay and direction are par excellence.

Can you expect anything ordinary from the school of Saurabh Shukla? I mean Saurabh Shukla. Personally speaking, I have been an admirer of his art from Tehkikaat (`94) to Taal (`99) and from Barfi! (2012) to Barff; Jolly LLB (2013), Satya (`98) Kareeb (`98), IRKSN (`96) notwithstanding. Despite his illustrious career, Saurabh is under-utilised as a jewel in the crown of the Indian entertainment industry. Apart from the aforesaid departments, he anchors Barff enough for the rest to sail smoothly.

Saurabh and Vinay Pathak have both played the protagonist, Dr Siddhant Kaul, in its various screenings, where Sadiya Siddiqui and Zinnia Ranji have taken over as Nafisa, the driver`s wife. Sunil Palwal has done the role of the taxi driver, Ghulam Rasool, in all its shows.

I attended the one which had Saurabh and Zinnia, playing the respective roles of the Doctor and Nafisa with announcements by Sadiya.

You can easily identify Sadiya, even by her voice, being one of the sweetest to your ears. It was good to hear announcements of a Hindi play in Hindi, where generally the crew and the crowd is English speaking. Zinnia holds her own as the woman with a Tinkerbell effect. The accent of Zinnia and Sunil is straight out of Kashmir. She has fire in her belly and it should come across a larger crowd, soon. Good Luck to her. Sunil is brilliant as Ghulam, the husband with truthiness. Yes, Truthiness! Look forward to see more of him in the circuit.

The stage set-up/ambience and the abruptness with which the play ends are areas where Barff could improvise in the upcoming shows. One more thing, the story can create more hope by exploring a tangible self-realisation for the future of the couple.

Barff numbs you and it’s aptly titled so. I wonder if I can suggest Kash-m-Kash / Mere Sach Ka Sach / Mukhote, as alternate titles.

Take it on the rocks. I`ll re-fill.