Exclusive: Actor Pratik Gandhi on playing a young Mahatma Gandhi in the play ‘Mohan’s Masala’

I love Mohanji's character. There's so much to explore and so many facets, so many emotions. And it is so human yet superhuman. His life is endlessly inspiring and relatable.

The character a lot has been spoken about him. There are so many things written on him. We've seen multiple movies, multiple short films, documentaries, so many things. But what actually interested me was the younger Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and his early life. He was not a born Mahatma. He was born with the thoughts of non-violence, Satyagraha, and truth and all of these virtues made him Mahatma. At different stages of life that he got, he learned something through his mistakes. And then he actually turned his own self into a father of the nation. He was somebody that the whole world is inspired by, since generations.

My biggest challenge was to create the younger Gandhi identities. When I started this play, I was 35. And the play starts with Gandhi when he was 5-year-old, then when he was 8, then 14, then 16 and so on. So, the biggest challenge is that how to make it believable for the audience that a 35-year-old man is performing this character of a 5-year-old, and not to look childish yet create that child on stage in front of them, without mimicking or using a childlike voice or anything.

As I said that he was never born with this thought. Most of the kids have thought and read about Mahatma Gandhi in school. So somewhere, unknowingly, what the children had been reading is what he has been teaching or that he was a Mahatma. But he was never born Mahatma. He made Mahatma out of himself. I feel the biggest learning for today's generation from this is how you can create Mahatma out of your own self. It is okay to fail, to make mistakes, but what is required is to understand it to recognise your mistakes and then change yourself for better.

It is very challenging and at the same time, very satisfying. You feel actually that you are the only one on stage and with a minimalistic set that you have used. So, there is no extra support from any other actor or any settings or any lighting or any gimmick to lighting. Everything is very minimalistic. I guess this is the most difficult form on stage…performing a full-length monologue. And the only solution is rehearsals.

I love coming back to the theatre, on stage, time and again. And I keep doing it. It's not that I've gone somewhere and I'm coming back. Theatre has never gone out of my system.

Theatre keeps me real, keeps me grounded. And it helps me to get back to the basics. Every time I make it a point that even while shooting a film if I have several days off, I make it a point that I give time to a possible performance.

The biggest challenge that we face with these modern theatre audiences is the attention span. They have a very, very limited attention span which makes theatre writers, directors and actors' jobs very difficult. Right. And they compel us to reinvent the style and format of storytelling. That's the biggest challenge.

Another thing is that there are so many avenues of entertainment that people have, which is why the creator needs to be exclusive about his play because it's the only art form which can give you real life experience. I mean real experience. I think in the coming time it's going to be absolutely extravagant.

And it should even become costlier. They should buy like costly tickets, like how it happens across the world. A few months back I was there in London and I saw that the tickets are five times costlier than the film tickets. And that too they are booked for the whole month.

I mean, I'm not restricted by any drama or anything. I like to explore different types of storytelling, musicals, drama, all different types of theatre. The only thing is that last few years, I hardly got any time to go and watch the play. But yes, I explore everything!