Saakaar’s new hilarious, rib-tickling comedy- Atlanta Dunia -

Saakaar’s new hilarious, rib-tickling comedy
Umar Pachpan ki, Dil Bachpan ka

Photos & Review by Girish Modi

The theater lovers of Atlanta area had a reason to celebrate with Saakaar for two weekends in August, when they presented 3 shows of their most recent hilarious Hindi comedy play “Umar Pachpan ki – Dil Bachpan ka” at IACA and Berkmar High School auditoriums. They also presented one show at Vedic Center in Greenville, SC.

Saakaar is Atlanta’s own theatrical group comprising of talented performing artists from all of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The group is dedicated to bringing quality and wholesome entertainment to the Atlanta and neighboring communities. Over the last seven years this group has brought high quality plays such as Love Letters, The Odd Couple and Rumors in English and Ballabhpur Ki Roopkatha, Ek Tha Gadha and Khoob Milayi Jodi in Hindi.

Umar Bachpan ki…is about 2 hour long comedy in which 2 middle-aged men named Champaklal (played by Amitabh Sharma) and Motilal (played by Swaroop Nyshadham) are obsessed with young charming women, even though both are married. While strolling in the park they always lookout for attractive women to flirt with. One day both of them with their servant BD went to Champaklal’s farmhouse. There they met a young sexy woman named Pinky (played by Kumud Savla) who is the niece of Shakuntala (played by Rita Kapahi) who works as a housekeeper at the farm house. Immediately both started daydreaming about dating her and even getting married to her one day. Just to brush their advances off, Pinky and Shakuntala interchanges their identities and that sets of sequences of confusion and laughter. Their servant named BD (played by Apurv Yadav and the star of the play) adds more twists and turns until two men get totally confused. As the plot thickens and story gets juicier, they bring in a voodoo doctor named Dr. Maro (played by Rehan Khan) who tells the old men that they have some kinds of unknown terminal diseases and are going to live only for eight more hours. Now the old men have second thought about their escapades and try to repent as their last good act, that is when the real situation is exposed by Pinky and her boyfriend Rajesh (played by Harsh Suri).

In their supporting roles, Aslam Pervez acted as Shakti Singh (a hoodlum) , Uroosa Khan as Bobby, Meenu Sharma as Mithu (Champaklal’s wife), Sunita Garg as Maya (Motilal’s wife)) and Jyoti Patel as Sanjana. Vijay Tripathi provided the sets, Sandeep Savla provided the sound, Hema Ramanathan provided lights and Uroosa, Siri & Suma did makeup.

The play is brilliantly directed by Swaroop Nyshadham and Syam Yellamaraju. Commenting on this challenging project, Swaroop said that it was difficult to gather a cast of 13 members and participate in rehearsals with their conflicting schedules, families and professional careers. Some of them had to even fly into town just to rehearse. In the end everybody pitched in and with their dedication and sacrifice the final act was put together.

Saakaar is donating all the proceeds from Umar Pachpan ki… to Raksha – a non-profit organization for the advancement of women in India.