Karl Marx In Kalbadevi

Uttam Gada drew his original inspiration for this theatrical piece from Howard Zinn's 1999 play Marx in Soho.[1] Zinn had imagined what might happen were Marx to wander around Manhattan's Soho. Manoj Shah recalls having had a 'lightbulb moment', wondering what would happen if Mumbai dhandhadaari, Gujarati speaking-traders, were exposed to the ideas of Karl Marx. He passed on the idea of picturing Marx wandering about an Indian neighbourhood famous for its dedication to capitalist ventures to Gada.[2]

Gada's play premiered at the National Centre for the Performing Arts, Mumbai on 22 March 2013.[3][4]

Believing a life without travel is no life at all, Karl Marx is overcome by an itch to globetrot. He rules out the classic countries that had adopted his ideas for his journey, Russia and China. Russia's weather is too cold, and in China he would have run up against the formidable language barrier of Chinese. He decides to visit India, indifferent to warnings of the dangers of venturing south. One reason prompting his choice of India was he had heard of a certain Mahatma Gandhi and his social activism, and word had come to him that two communist parties, one of which had been named after him, had been established in the country.[5]

On arriving in Mumbai, Marx is keen to visit Mani Bhavan, a museum dedicated to Gandhi's memory, only to find it is closed. He crosses paths with a Gujarati named Manoj Shah who offers to act as his guide and takes him for a tour round Kalbadevi, the heartland of Gujarati capitalism. They proceed next to the Mumba Devi Temple. After dining at a notable local restaurant, the Bhagat Tarachand,[5] the two end up in a pied à terre. Located in a crowded chawl, the gritty realities of this building and the impoverished quarter around it prompt Marx to recall his early life of humble dwellings, poverty and his struggle as he labored to finish his masterpiece, Das Capital.[1]

Karl Marx In Kalbadevi is one of Shah's long-running productions.[6]

Deepa Gahlot thought Satchit Puranik, with his thick shock of hair and bushy beard, bore a striking similarity to the historic Marx. The director, Shah, thought that a play in Gujarati, which belonged to the genre of experimental theatre, had little prospect of reaching more than a handful of viewers, and that it would play at most for just a few nights. Contrary to expectations, however, the piece proved a great success, being performed hundreds of times in Gujarati and in a version of English inflected by Hindi, known as Hinglish.[1][7]

For Gahlot, there is a tongue-in-cheek tone in Shah's production, with its bold sermonizing about the virtues of socialism before an audience of dyed-in-the wood capitalists. The basic facts of Marx's life and thinking are set forth woven with homespun truths, iconoclasm and intellectual challenges to preconceived ideas, all threaded with a comic vein. One defect, she argues, is that Marx's formidable figure and life tends to swamp its context, the world of Kalbadevi. The piece could be challenged as too simplistic, but some accommodation was necessary if the play was to achieve its aim, of hinting to an audience, predominantly raised on a greed-is-good ethic, that the Marxist analysis of capitalism merited consideration.[1]

Deepa Punjani noted the novelty of introducing into what she considered a rather frivolous tradition of theatrical entertainment, a one-man show in which the global figure of Karl Marx comments on what he sees in the Gujarati world. Her reservations about the script were that it oversimplified and warped Marx's thinking by making it 'safe' for the Gujarati audience by a perceived bending to the local fascination with money-making. This when, after the financial meltdown of 2008, Marx's analysis of capitalism, as opposed to his discredited political theories, began to attract renewed interest. Marx is made to recognise the virtues of venture capitalism and technological innovations, for example. The monologue unfolds at breakneck speed, sprinkled with humorous quips, if at times rather repetitively. Despite these shortcomings, she advised theatre-goers to see the play and suggested that the author and director of the play be more adventurous in future attempts to introduce provocative material for the Gujarati stage.[8]

While criticising the unnecessary mentions of the director Manoj Shah in the play and the hollowness of the title, Utpal Bhayani praised the way the play presents the more or less balanced integration of Marx's personal life and his works. He felt the difficult ideas from Marx's magnum opus Das Capital and Communist Manifesto, which he co-authored with his lifetime friend Friedrich Engels, are presented interestingly.[9]