Devesh Nigam completed his engineering from Delhi Technological University in 2008. After a brief stint with a technical start-up, he decided to switch gears and follow his heart. Right through his school and college days, Devesh had loved writing stories and plays. And today at 27, he has his own theatre group, Cineaste, for which he writes and directs plays.

Devesh is among the growing breed of young playwrights in the city who are setting aside the time-honoured theatrical initiation of adapting established scripts, and instead, responding to their urban realities with original work. Dealing with topics like homosexuality, road rage, waste disposal, widow remarriage, political affairs to reinterpreting historical incidents, they are willing to experiment with style and narrative. While Bengaluru and Mumbai has had a strong culture of young playwrights, the capital is now slowly picking up.
“While plays based on the works of Shakespeare and Premchand might find a sure-shot audience, it is necessary to write plays that are contextual and cater to modern issues. We need to have scripts which we can control and alter according to situations,” says 25-year-old Dhruv Sachdeva, founder of Humour Me, that is promoting theatre in a big way. Dhruv writes plays that talk about modern issues in a lighter vein. “Delhi audience has an underlying sense of humour,” adds Dhruv.
Devesh has been writing scripts in Hindi and English for almost two years now and says he has a fondness for satire, since it reflects the socio-political environment. Talking about the language preference, he says, “Although I have written in English as well, Hindi is something that can be used to address a larger audience and for the younger lot, the use of Hinglish is also a viable alternative.”
His bilingual play Happy Birthday, based on Gandhi’s talisman, was nominated in the category of new talent award for the Short and Sweet Theatre festival held in the city.
“After being a part of plays in school and college, I realised that there was a lacuna when it came to original scripts that talked about ‘us’ — the generation born in the 80s, who are passionate about love, life and work and are not willing to compromise on any aspect. So it was a natural progression for me to get into scripting for theatre,” smiles Ritika Kapoor.
Talking about the growing interest of the capital’s audience, playwright Anjon Bose explains, “The audience has grown intelligent and can tell the difference between a certain genre of play from another. As a result, it has become imperative for the younger generation to wield the pen and understand its audience.”
A painter by profession, Anjon has been writing plays for some time now and some of his works include Season in Hell (based on 17th century poet, Arthur Rimbaud) and The White.
It is not just Hindi and English plays that are enrapturing the Delhi enthusiasts. Even regional languages are finding an audience. Anjon’s wife, Sreemoyee has been working towards translating Bengali plays to Hindi. Recently she ventured into writing original works in Bengali. “In a play format, one can really draw in on the latest incidents that have moved us. For instance, I wrote a 15-minute play, Setsumei in Bengali and Japanese that deals with the plight of a samurai’s wife who is raped. Around that time the Nirbhaya case was in the news. So I decided to rope in the same,” she says.