The Shri Ram Centre presented Manoj Mitra’s Bengali comedy in Pratibha Agarwal’s Hindi translation as Khel Khiladi Khel.
The play is directed by the wonderful actor Sameep Singh. Trained at NSD, he brings an artistic concern to the performance.
The play is a satire on man’s desire for power and his love of lucre. And it shows how after getting power man becomes the devil incarnate and begins his ugly power game whether it is in politics or in business.
The playwright has taken a small kingdom whose king has just died to tell his tale.
A greedy brahmin and his loyal son are going to a kingdom in a hope of getting some alms from the king. They are in despair when on their way they hear of the king’s death from some soldiers they meet at a liquor den. The duo then decide to pray to lord Shani to get them some money.
Meanwhile, Shani Devta in his disco gear, is shown rocking on film music and contemplating about the universe. Not unhappy with the diversion caused by the petitioners, he decides to go and meet-them in the forest.
The father and the son are overwhelmed to see Shani Devta. Shani Devta tells them that it is easy to get rich. He tells them that one of them has to enter the body of the dead king, while the other has to take care of the dead body of the one who has taken over the body of the king.
The two disappear behind the tree to consult and decide who has to do what. To sustain the suspense there is an intermission at this point.
When we come back after intermission we see the son carrying the father’s dead body.
The brahmin in the king’s body is confronted by his captors who turn out to be the same two soldiers he met in the liquor den. They are on to him even though he tries diversionary tactics to fool them. The brahmin very soon learns all about the treasury. His beleaguered son, on his only visit, is told by the father that it is a matter of days when he will be able to collect the stuff from the treasury and run.
But, the brahmin starts enjoying the palace intrigues and plots and he grows very powerful. When the brahmin thinks of going back, he realises that he will not be able to do without the luxuries he is enjoying now.
His only connection with the other world is the dead body that his son is carrying. The brahmin now tries to get back the dead body from his son.
The scene in which the race between the father and the son to get the body is shown is turbulent and rife with sound and light.
Sameep Singh handles the production with a light touch, looking at the humorous in every character and situation. His actors too are looking at the funny side of the characters.
The prime movers of the action are Shrikant Varma as the dead king, Sunil Massey as Shani and of course, Mazibur Rehman as the brahmin.
The others in the cast, Shobha Sharma as Kubja, Vatika Tiwari as the king’s young wife who is having an affair with the king’s younger brother Chandraketu (Mukesh Bhatt) and the two soldiers Pankaj Lochan Goswami and Maheshchandra Verma, offer great support to the action.