The stage is awash in hazy blue light, as the curtain rises on the mystical world of Ananda: Eyes of the Healer, a dance drama. A group of dancers enter in white free-flowing attire. They surround Ananda, played by Rudra Soni, as he searches for divinity, aching to break free of the material world. He flits like a bee in agitation across the stage.
A video screen in the background runs footage that transports the viewer to what the dancers are depicting with their Bharatnatyam mudras—the lush forest, the stark mountains, the whimsical springs and more. Dancer Sandeep Soparkar as Dharma, the high priest of the cosmos, guides the hapless young boy, and ultimately rewards him with the miraculous power of healing. Ananda’s fame spreads far and wide and hundreds throng him. One such devotee is Maya, played by Diana Volokhova—the king’s young wife—whose relationship with the healer evolves into a timeless love story.
Penned and produced by Nelofar Currimbhoy, Ananda is the theatrical adaptation of her book in verse. It has been directed and composed by filmmaker Muzaffar Ali and narrated by actor Kabir Bedi. How did the book turn into a musical? “The thought was always there. The story had a lot of scope for a theatre production. I was looking for the right opportunity and the right person to translate my vision. Everything has its own time,” says Currimbhoy. Before it was christened Ananda for the stage, the Eyes of the Healer was born as an audio book. “And who better to narrate the tale than Kabir Bedi with his baritone?” smiles the author, daughter of beauty mogul Shahnaz Husain.
The audio book transpired into “something amazing”, as Bedi made his own tweaks to the original text. The actor, who takes up theatre projects “maybe once every eight years to satisfy my soul” was drawn to the story because “it was an epic, magical and mythical poem—a very interesting way of telling
a story. It is a profoundly philosophical, yet very human”, says the actor.
Currimbhoy was so overwhelmed by Bedi’s narration that she wanted to take it to the next level: turning the audio book into a musical drama. “I approached Muzaffar. He took his time and I had almost lost hope. It was finally Kabir who convinced him that he should take up the project. The story has a certain beauty about it, and Muzaffar has a way of capturing it. His forte is music and that enhanced the production. The fact that he is a poet too, added to the strength of the overall piece,” she says.
When you have someone like Ali—famous for creating the poetic world of Umrao Jaan—helming
a dance drama, it is natural that the project would have the imprint of his musical sensibilities. So there is Amir Khusro’s poetry performed by qawwals. They lend a Sufi touch to the show, perfectly in sync with the semi-Kathak movements of Maya and the love that the lead pair epitomises—something belonging to a dream or trance-like realm.
It’s been a long time since Ali directed something. His last project was the film Jaanisaar in 2015. Why the sabbatical? “I do things in my own time. With films taking a backseat, I kept myself busy with painting, which gives me an aesthetic liberation,” he says, adding that he has tried to bring the feel of a painting on the stage, creating magic with music, dance and light. The choice of minimal props was deliberate since he wanted to create a sense of space and freedom. “For the music, I wanted a seamless track with multiple layers of culture and emotion,” says the director and composer.
Currimbhoy is now looking at taking her show across the country. The first stop, she hopes, would be Mumbai. “I believe that the audience there would really appreciate an English dance drama. After that I would let the project decide where to be staged next. After all, a play gets a life of its own. It goes beyond the people involved in it,” she says.