On March 11th in front of a jam-packed auditorium Rajit Kapoor performed a monoact at Rangashankara in the play 'Flowers' written by Girish Karnad and directed by Roysten Abel and produced by Arundhati Nag's Rangashankara itself. So the production was a sort of joining of hands of some of the highly acclaimed names in the theatre, coming from different parts of the country to give one memorable performance. 'Flowers' is one of the highly acclaimed plays out of Girish Karnad's pen off late, one that poses hard questions to conservative  Indian society and in it gives a deep, profound contemporaraly significant message to a wide audience.


 
Story revolves around the life of the protagonist priest and his love for his God and equal fondness for his mistress Chadravathi a courtesan. He is a master in decorating shiva Linga with flowers for pooja. Everyday he decorates the linga and performs pooja   when the King arrives.After the God's pooja is over he goes to his second love Chandrvathi's house and decorates her in exactly the same way and precision he decorates the God. In other words, he treats her like a Goddess. People call his actions uncalled for and criticize him for loosing his sanctity.  On one night when the arrival of the King is delayed beyond midnight, he without performing pooja to the God walks to Chadravathi's house during night and offers her his daily dose of decoration from the flowers that were meant to be for the real God .




After he returns to temple that night, King delayed by an urgent commitment arrives late at midnight. The priest has to now perform pooja on the main god. But he now has to use the same touched and corrupted flowers to decorate the God. At that time his two Gods, the real God and courtesan both collide and appear as being one. King is left with awe and lots of questions unanswered. Seeing long hair projecting out of the Linga, the King fumbled asks the priest with wonder and also fury 'Does God have Long hair'. Priest with firm tone answers 'If you believe that God has long hair, he will have'. Hence this way the play throws a tricky question to audience on what God is?

To say the least Rajit Kapoor was simply superb in his performance. Mind you he is a national award winner for his role in the film 'Making of the Mahatma' by Shyam Benegal. Basically Rajit just sat and occasionally stood up and just went on narrating his story as a priest for 80 minutes. But he did the role very professionally and held the audience's attention without a moment of difference throughout those 80 mins thanks to his superb dialog delivery, eye movements and expressions. As director Roysten Abel would have it to physicalize the metaphor of his mindset between his two beloved Gods, the protagonist Rajit was made to stand on a suspended platform with a little water pond below.

           Though a very serious and silent play, it was truly a great experience to watch one of the highly acclaimed, extremely talented actors of India, my favorite, the famous Bhymokesh Bakshi himself live on stage!   
Useful link throwing light on Rajit Kapoor's work in theatre - http://www.hinduonnet.com/mp/2004/12/28/stories/2004122800690100.htm