Bandra's Bazar Road inspires innovative play featuring puppetry and dance

At first sight, Bandra’s Bazar Road looks like a row of dilapidated buildings, comprising shops that sell food, clothes, electronics and Tupperware. These are the minute facets that theatre director Reshma Shetty’s play, House Of Shops, explores about the over-crowded lane, which is also one of the oldest markets of the suburb.

At first sight, Bandra’s Bazar Road looks like a row of dilapidated buildings, comprising shops that sell food, clothes, electronics and Tupperware. However, on closer inspection, you might notice a lone hawker selling bhel, or a customer bargaining vociferously over a purchase. These are the minute facets that theatre director Reshma Shetty’s play, House Of Shops, explores about the over-crowded lane, which is also one of the oldest markets of the suburb.

Before commencing rehearsals for the drama, the cast visited Bazar Road on multiple occasions. Their aim was to grasp the details of the locality. Furthermore, Shetty has used multiple theatrical devices such as shadow puppetry, classical dance and music, and charcoal paintings, in order to depict the several activities taking place in the market. The actors, too, hail from varied performance backgrounds. While one is a dancer, the other is an artist.

“The serenity and history of Bazar Road have been captured through shadow puppetry. We have also used dance to show physical actions, for example, the mixing of bread and batter, which happens every morning before the arrival of customers,” says Shetty.

A trained Bharatanatyam and Odissi dancer, Shetty has been associated with theatre since the past 20 years, and has worked with Neeraj Kabi’s theatre company, Pravah. Ask her about the inspiration for the play, and she says, “We wanted to capture the old shopping experience of Bazar Road, and contrast the buyer-vendor interaction to modern-day online shopping.” Essentially, the drama hopes to highlight the loss of human connection.