Anju Khemani and the Drama Association of the Deaf…

Imagine an audience that is instructed not to clap, but to wave their hands instead. Imagine a play without a sound check, without a mike. Imagine an audience capture of laughter without the accompanying sound of a dialog or a wisecrack.

Last night, at LaMakaan, Anju Khemani transported a full house into the unreal world of the deaf. A world which we have been led to believe is full of missing out on life because they can’t hear. But a world, which we realized by the end of the evening,  is as funny as our ‘real’ world.

The Deaf have language problems! They have misunderstandings. They have opinions, confusions, fears, apprehensions and celebratory feelings just like their hearing blessed brethren.

Did you know for instance that each country has a different sign language. ISL, ASL, BSL…Indian Sign Language, American SIgn Language, British Sign Language and so on. And imagine that even the deaf have to face the challenges of different accents and are affected by MTI (Mother Tongue Influence).

From the first scene of the play, the plot thickens. Characters pop up out of the ground and start off as 2D comic strip cartoons. But as you understand their travails, and laugh with their mime, the characters blossom into full blown 3D personalities who don’t need speech to communicate with an audience that normally is communication impaired even with the facility of speech.

As you hear the peal of laughter from a child throughout the play, you wonder if you missed something of the joke or if the kid is just a natural laugher. But later when you are told that he is the son of a father with a chronic hearing problem, and that he has learnt the sign language to communicate with his parents, you are humbled.

Phani Kumar, D.V.S. Sethu and Mohammad Abdul Ashwaq as three candidates who attend an interview and then become friends…share a room, an evening…were just out of this world. Their bodily inhibitions were shed and they wiggled their way through a brilliant combination of mime and theatrics with consummate ease. The pooja obsessed Sethu, the smoke screened Phani and the shower maniac Ashwaq endeared themselves to the audience and simply stole our hearts.

All in all, a wonderful initiative. Anju Khemani and her colleague Praveen Kumar need to be heartily congratulated. More power to them. May there be more shows for more of us to enjoy. God Bless.