Mumbai’s Prithvi Theatre to feature “Khatijabai of Karmali Terrace”

In the play, director Quasar Padamsee has based Khatijabai’s character on his Ismaili Khoja paternal grandmother, Kulsum Padamsee. The play is set in Mumbai’s Khoja community and has been featured intermittently for several years.

Khatijabai of Karmali Terrace, a monologue, has Jayati Bhatia playing diverse roles from a teenager to a septuagenarian. Khatijabai is an innocent woman, but circumstances make her manipulative. She starts off as an abandoned teenager, who grows to be the matriarch of a household and ends up being abandoned once again in her old age. Khatijabai is a story of not just one woman, but of all of us who are trapped in lives that aren’t exactly our own.

The play, in a nutshell, is about wanting to belong. Director Quasar Thakore Padamsee (Q as he is called) came upon this play during a drama course. It is set in Mumbai’s Khoja community and the action unfolds in a Colaba building. Incidentally, Khatijabai’s character is inspired by Qs paternal grandmother, Kulsum Padamsee, to whom he has dedicated the play.

Kulsum Terrace on Colaba’s Walton Road is where the Padamsees lived and began the English theatre movement in the 1940s. Qs father Alyque Padamsees elder brother Bobby Padamsee formed the Theatre Group of Bombay. In the play, the rocking chair used by Qs grandmother has been made a part of the sets.

References: http://www.prithvitheatre.org – http://beta.mid-day.com – http://www.mumbaitheatreguide.com – http://www.timeoutmumbai.net