Queer love and nostalgia: Ramanjit Kaur and Taranjit Kaur on The Chai Queens

Taranjit: I wanted to tell a love story between two women. I felt it was important to portray same-sex love with the same emotions we assign to heterosexual couples—anger, jealousy, insecurity, lust—because they’re a part of any relationship. I was also fascinated by the idea of falling in love as a teenager and how that love evolves when you're in your 30s or 40s.

Ramanjit: So, it had been a few years since Taranjit and I have not worked together, and we have been wanting to work together. When she got commissioned by Prague Fringe, she brought me a storyline, and I was excited to direct. So, yeah, what inspired me was the storyline of two women being in love, and how we scaled out their companionship during childhood, then how they grew as young girls, and they were pulled apart by society, by family, and how they meet again after 15 years at a wedding. And then, the nostalgia, memories and complexities of the relationship unfold. The storyline of this play was extremely crucial for me, because I had been wanting to do a queer play for the past couple of years and this one finally took shape with a committed team.

Taranjit: Bubbly is very close to my heart, in the sense that she is, in many ways, very similar to me. She is very vibrant, very rebellious, very full of life, wants to do things her way and is fearless. Yet sometimes, because of circumstances, most of us fall into our ordinary life, where we have to get into a certain structure of living our life. But how those inherent qualities of a person, what we were at a young age, if we were rebellious or fun loving, are somewhere suppressed inside you, and sometimes you just need the right person to come back in your life to bring out those qualities. So, I think that's how I looked at the character of Bubbly when I was developing and working and then, of course, enacting it.

Ramanjit: So, our theatre, as we learnt from our guru, sees the director as the creator of imagery. We believe in creating visual imagery. Even though the imagery is minimalist in this play, we’ve used dolls as a lead motive. You know, in childhood, we’d have a girl and a boy doll and play weddings. But here, it’s two girl dolls—and we marry them off. The wedding scene stands out for me. These two women couldn’t get married, but when they meet again, they remember the play wedding of their two dolls.

We created that on a sheet, they dip their feet in alta, hold the dolls, and dance to Lathe Di Chadar. In the centre, there’s a small trunk with a tea party setup—two clay idols, candles, and the dolls. Around that, these two women take pheras, their feet dipped in alta marking the sheet—dreams dipped in red. They make playful vows like, “I promise to save you from spiders, even if I’m scared.” That scene was written by a teenage girl, Amaira Singh. It’s a scene very close to my heart—the wedding of the two girl dolls, full of memory, longing, and what never was.

Taranjit: I think, for me, the favourite scenes are mostly the nostalgic scenes, because there’s a lot of nostalgia in the play. Like, you know, when you meet a friend from your childhood or teenage years, or you meet an ex-lover, you go into all those old remembrances—we used to do this, we used to do that. That’s something I feel the audience really connected with, and that was the response—they found it very relatable. Then, of course, the climax—a confrontation scene between both characters—is powerful and was a challenge for me.

But what’s also interesting is how different the final version became from what I had originally imagined. We adapted what was written by Vikran, and a lot was also derived during the process. What really helped was how Ramanjit, the director, pushes you to explore the complexities of the character. You might come with a structure, scenes, and a way to perform, but she keeps pushing you to get the best out of yourself. And it doesn’t end with the first show—it evolves with each performance. That’s the fun and magic of theatre, and why I wanted it to happen again with Ramanjit.

Ramanjit: Staying true to the relationship between two women without falling into clichés. We wanted to tell a love story between two human beings, and keeping every moment emotionally honest was the biggest challenge.

Taranjit: I’ve recently wrapped a web series Ikatthe with Hardik Mehta in a lead role, a show called Familiar Families with Prithvi Dasgupta, and a film called Covid with Anup Soni. Many of them are in post-production.

Ramanjit: I have finished a film called Match fixing which came to the theatres and hopefully will come on OTT and I also directed Home in a Suitcase by Ruhani Singh, a solo piece exploring home and identity through 24-year-old Taarini’s eyes.

(By Addrita Sinha)