Autumn of the matriarch

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Kanchi

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Posted: 21 years ago

Autumn of the matriarch
By: Shaheen Parkar
November 18, 2004

Shaheen Parkar

SOLO ACT: Jayati Bhatia in Khatijabai of
Karmali Terrace

As part of the on-going Prithvi Theatre Festival in the city, Q Theatre Production stages Khatijabai of Karmali Terrace.

An adaptation of the Singaporean play, Stella Kon's Emily of Emerald Hill, this one-woman play in English is the story of Khatijabai, a septuagenarian matriarch. Enacting Khatijabai is TV-theatre actress Jayati Bhatia.

"It's the first time I am doing a solo-act play. So all eyes are on me and I can't go off-step even for a moment," says Bhatia who finds Khatijabai's saga riveting.

Khatijabai starts of as an abandoned teenager who grows to be the matriarch of a household and ends up being abandoned in old age.

The play has been adapted and directed by Quasar Thakore Padamsee who simply prefers to be called Q.

He came upon this play during a drama course. Initially, it did not go down well with him. He read it again later and "gradually the play grew upon me. I began to see the similarity between Emily of Singapore and the traditional women of our country."

Incidentally, the play was first performed in Singapore in 1984 and follows the protagonist's bittersweet life, going back and forth in time as a society hostess, interfering matriarch, scheming daughter-in-law, possessive wife and finally a grieving mother.

For the play, Q has tried to kept Kon's character and only changed the cultural context. "I have set in the Khoja community and the action unfolds in a Colaba building."

Incidentally, Khatijabai's character is inspired by Q's 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.

Q's father Alyque Padamsee's elder brother Bobby Padamsee formed the Theatre Group of Bombay. "In the play we have used the rocking chair which Q's grandmother used," adds Bhatia.

Q theatre troupe's earlier plays include Acid (which had Bhatia in the cast), A View From The Stage, Minorities, The Tale of Manaseth, All My Sons and The Night Thoreau Spent In Jail.

On the stage front, Bhatia has acted in Rahul da Cunha's Going Solo 1, Feroz Khan's Mahatma v/s Gandhi and Mahabanoo Mody Kotwal's The Vagina Monologues.

While on the small screen she appears as the know-all secretary Bindiya Bakshi in Jassi Jaissi Koi Nahin and as Nancy in Hum 2 Hain Na (both Sony) and as Geeta in Kasauti Zindagi Kay (Star Plus).

Khatijabai of Karmali Terrace at Prithvi Theatre, Juhu, today at 6 and 9 pm