Hera Pheri in Hong Kong

"Hera Pheri is a play about love and moralities, about the choices we make in life and how it all comes back to haunts us!" explained Bhavana Balsaver. "Its one of the funniest situational comedies I've done," adds Ashiesh Roy, who used to play the lead character of lawyer Jatin Rai earlier, but chose to play the sycophantic friend Chetan Bakshi this time round. "I had long wanted to play the conniving yet sweet friend Chetan. Its a very interesting character. We all have such 'good friends ' who, slowly but steadily take over our lives, our thoughts, our actions, since we trust them so much!" winks Ashiesh.

Sanjiv Jotangia, who plays Jatin this time round, tells us about his character in the play, "I play an upwardly mobile young man named Jatin Rai, living in Mumbai with his chirpy young wife Kavita". Sheetal Maulik, who plays Kavita, chips in. "Kavita is a happy housewife while Jatin is a practicing liar I mean lawyer( laughs). He has been working in a prestigious law firm for the past seven years, and is due to become a partner very soon. In fact, his boss Mr. Irani (Hormadz Chesan) is coming home for dinner that very evening, to break this splendid news to the young couple".

"But," adds Ashiesh, "as luck will have it, that very day Jatin's old college acquaintance Chetan Bakshi comes visiting and unwittingly stumbles upon a dark secret in Jatin's life - that the super-successful lawyer does not hold a genuine law degree!!! The free-loader Chetan immediately starts black-mailing Jatin, and settles down in his house indefinitely. He also engages a model named Tina to pose for his paintings, and asks the modeling agency to send her at Jatin's address."

Bhavana, who plays Tina, sums up. "When the pretty Tina comes asking for Jatin, Kavita suspects her husband's fidelity and storms out of the house, completely forgetting that Jatin's boss is coming for dinner! A panic stricken Jatin somehow persuades Tina to pose as his wife when his boss arrives. Meanwhile Kavita returns home in remorse and Jatin tells his boss that she's Chetan's wife! Irani has to stay over at Jatin's house for the night because of foul weather, and catches Jatin and Tina in a rather awkward situation. Both Kavita and Chetan are upset with Jatin and Tina, and the boss is confused as hell! In the course of a single evening, Jatin's happy world of lies lay in shambles ' his promotion up in smoke and his loving wife suspecting him of infidelity!"

But, after a whole lot of comical twists and turns - the truth is revealed and all misunderstandings are sorted out. Jatin and Kavita make up while Tina and Chetan hook up. Jatin promises his boss that he will attend night school and get a real law degree. All is well that ends well.

The actors all share an interesting incident that happened when they were rehearsing for the play recently. We were rehearsing for our play show in Hong Kong at my house in the evening when suddenly, the skies opened up!" exclaimed Bhavana. "And we just ran up to the terrace. There was no question about it!" Sheetal added. "It was incredible. Now I know how peacocks feel!" smiled Ashiesh.

They danced in the rain for almost an hour as fellow actors Sanjiv Jotangia (Ram Milaye Jodi) and Hormadz Chesan joined in with music, piping hot pakodas and chai. "We also rehearsed bits of our play in the downpour, just for kicks." informed Bhavana. "Of course, we were all soaked to the bones and resembled a bunch of drowned cats, but who cared? We had huge grins plastered all over our faces for the rest of the evening!" chortles Ashiesh.

We wish the cast good luck for their upcoming performance in Honk Kong.