Book Review
Mumbai Traps
(A collection of plays by Anju Makhija)
Publisher: Dhauli Books
Pages 316
By Venkatesh Raghavan
Mumbai Traps, though referring to an era in which the port city was officially known as Bombay, is a collection of plays scripted by Sahitya Academy award-winning author Anju Makhija. The six plays that she has chosen from a myriad assortment of literary scripts she had penned in her illustrious career spanning more than three decades actually serve to provide the lay reader with a bird’s eye view of the life and problems that plague the people living in this metro city.
Readers will find it easy to identify themselves with such characters when they come across the problems being faced by an average Mumbaikar. For example, “If wishes were horses” deals with the housing woes that the residents of the city face perennially. For those who are familiar with the realm of playwrights, it’s reminiscent of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion in which a flower-vending girl on the streets gets slated for a windfall in her life. The parallel in both plays, however, is only using a street flower vendor to play the protagonist.
It’s like from one woe to the other akin to the narrative that transpires in the Book of St John’s Revelation in the Holy Bible, with each angel blowing a trumpet presenting a fresh set of hardships to those who dwell on our planet. Passing on from the metro city’s housing problems, her second play dwells on the commuting woes faced by an average Mumbaikar on overcrowded local trains. Titled “Last Train” it presents a political satire that will serve to enliven readers who are familiar with regular commutes on Bombay aka Mumbai’s local trains. It touches on a situation in which commuters get trapped in a train compartment subsequent to a political murder that set the amber lights blinking to the law-enforcing authorities.
Greed and passion that lead to a life of crime and struggle in the metro city bursting at its seams get amply reflected when the author uses her narrative skills for her play Meeting with Lord Yama. Her play Off the Hook is reminiscent of late Michael Jackson’s chartbuster Beat It. It’s a parallel between two situations. The play, it’s a story of a migrant arriving at the city and attempting to carve a niche for himself, before he has to decide on whether to pack up and quit. Michael Jackson’s Beat It reflects on a situation in which a newly arrived street kid is asked to beat it and quit the locality if he values his life and fears the violent street gangs that can imperil life.
Anju exhibits her prolific exposure to philosophies and literature of different genres as well as eras. Translations from the verses penned by the legendary Sufi poet, Shah Abdul Latif (from the 16th century) find mention in the narrative script of her plays. The well-scripted social themes centring on Bombay life will easily remind the readers of the older genre to sing “Give me some sunshine; Give me some rain; I want another chance to grow up once again”.
