BENGALURU: With conversations around gender and sexuality having opened up, this soon-to-be-staged play Ondu Preetiya Kathe! revolves around friendship, love, discovery and the complexities surrounding it. Based on Vijay Tendulkar’s Mitrachi Gosht, the 110-minute story has been translated and directed by Venkatesh Prasad.
The show, which will be staged for the 25th time, revolves around the story of a young girl, her journey to self-discovery, the coming-out of Preethi, and the life-changing moments in Preethi’s struggle to cope with being ‘different.’ Set in a college, the play is a commentary on love.
The play is weaved into a complex character with intricate plotlines that break the taboo on lesbian identities. “Love is a sensibility that is beyond all boundaries. Nevertheless, the moral framework, social restrictions and structures of the ‘civilized world’ exist towards love and it is only ironical, that the modern world allows public display of hate, anger and jealousy but not love,” says Prasad.
The play focuses primarily on Preethi’s love affair, but is narrated through the eyes of her friend and protagonist, Ajay. Their friendship goes through a succession of quick, dramatic growth spurts that reveal the complexity of friendship and show that Ajay ultimately comes to represent: a homophobic society that keeps its blinders on to naturalise straight relationships as the norm. “The idea of reproduction being the sole outcome of love has left us today with the idea of ‘abnormality’ about anything that does not result in reproduction,” he says.
Ondu Preetiya Kathe! will be staged on August 14, at 7.30pm. Tickets: bookmyshow.com; 9900182400