By: Gail Pittaway 

A production by Indian Ink Theatre Company is always something to look forward to. Their plays have a heartfelt message, but are usually portrayed with charm and wit, music, dance, masking and puppetry. It’s wonderful to welcome them back to sell-out audiences in Hamiton.
The play is loosely based on a well-loved story by the great storyteller Rabindranath Tagore, ‘Kabuliwala’, or the man from Kabul, and given a contemporary urban New Zealand setting.

Jacob Rajan plays Ravi, the homeowner who lives in a three-generation house with his daughter Sara and granddaughter Mini. A retired architect, he now wants to paint in his studio, and though he adores her, he does find Mini’s incessant chatter distracting. Sara is a bitter woman, having been left by Steve (always referred to as Dickhead by her father), when Mini was a baby so she was unable to finish her university law studies. In the beginning of the play she works in a local store and depends on her father for support with childcare. It’s a happy but noisy household and the adults regularly debate about their circumstances; Ravi wishing Sara would have finished her studies and could land a job with decent terms and salary while Sara wishes her father wouldn’t nag her.

Kabir is a migrant worker who passes their house daily, after night shifts at a petrol station. He begins a conversation with Ravi which eventually leads to an ongoing friendship with Mini, whom he delights with his shadow puppetry and silly jokes. Sara discovers this friendship after finding sweets in Mini’s room and suspects her father of trying to ruin her daughter’s health with bribes. When she finds Ravi has opened their doors to a stranger, Kabir, who is the source of the sweets, she suspects and accuses him of all kinds of perverse intentions with her daughter. She forbids him from the house and from contact with Mini. Her suspicion of the stranger is understandable, but both the original story and the play offer insights into each of their motives and the dangers of judging people too quickly.

Eventually Ravi and Sara begin to realise how exploited Kabir is by his boss who has confiscated his phone and his passport. They are instantly much more sympathetic, but ultimately one of the sad messages of the story is that their position is equally helpless to save Kabir from the inevitable tragedy that unfolds, when he tries to assert his rights. This contemporary scandal of abuse is at the core of the play and, though surrounded by music and light and vitality, it hits hard.

Jacob Rajan’s Ravi is a lively, lovable chap, entirely modern yet with touches of the caricatured old man, cranky and petty, forgetful and friendly. His energy whirls through the story and the simple but layered set, with its rostra and curtains suggesting rooms and doors.
Alisha Jacob as Sara is compelling and utterly convincing— a beautiful young woman left in the lurch, yet trying to make good.
Kabir, played by Jehangir Homavasir is perfect as the bewildered stranger, at a loss in a foreign land whose fellow countrymen are not of his religion or language. (In the original story he is a stranger from Kabul, Afghanistan). His friendship with Mini becomes an important one for him, giving human connection and, we find, connection to his own family from which he has travelled so far to provide support, with his earnings.

Stand-out moments are always guided by David Ward’s onstage music and sound effects. Such as when he produces a tiny but punchy drum duet with Sara as she boxes her way through a diatribe about her ex. Or when the three adult actors break into a chorus with song and dance, in pure celebration of conviviality.

There are running gags about cultural customs; Kabir always takes his shoes off before Ravi can finish saying, “Don’t worry about taking off your shoes …” Ravi invites Kabir for a slap-up home-cooked dinner, but it’s a fish dish and Kabir is a vegetarian. Though derived from the great subcontinent of India, both Ravi and Sara are New Zealand-born, so the only language they all have in common is English.
And Mini? Such a central character to the story, she is beautifully conveyed through song, dance, chorus work and puppetry. The restless foot-tapping and awkward poses, the questions and relentless chatter, the curiosity and the joy of a five-year-old, all revealed through the magic tricks of theatre.

With flexible costumes and sets, a minimum of fuss, the strength of the actors and musician transport this story of treatment of strangers, from its earliest incarnation to a fable for modern times. Once again, a gorgeous and inspiring piece of storytelling from Indian Ink.