Indians and their love for drama is the only saga longer than a three-hour Bollywood film. And it is our never-ending infatuation with cinema that has directed our worldview. However, it is seldom that dramas are created for an audience that challenges this worldview, but when it is brought to its audience, it does come with a bang.
Boom Shankar is a nearly 75-minute drama that is filled with references for not only its brown audience but every person sitting in the room to enjoy. Written and performed by Aman Bajaj and Bala Murali Shingade, and directed by Ahi Karunaharan, the play tells the story of Shankar Shinde, a Bomb Defusal School of Manukau (BDSM) graduate and the test of his skills when he has to defuse a bomb.
Below this superficiality, the audience follows Shankar on a journey to discover love and life, where he is forced to tap into all his training, coping mechanisms, and divine intervention through his strangest adventure to date.
Though the play seems to be replete with all the complexities an audience would enjoy, Bajaj and Shinagde have larger ambitions for it.
“We wanted to overturn the trope of a brown man who is a terrorist and flip it and have a bearded brown man as someone who defuses bombs,” Bajaj says.
Though the writers of Boom Shankar eventually want the audience to have a good time, leave the show with a smile and form a connection with the person seated next to them, the play gives the audience something to think about too.
“It does have a few deeper themes that we want people to reflect on, so maybe, later on, people can think back to some of the things that were in the show and reflect on them in a more serious way as well,” Shingade says.
The play had humble beginnings, however, before turning into what it is today. Bajaj recalled that he was in the shower when he came up with this idea, and the first iteration of the play was a five-minute monologue for another play, ‘First World Problems’ by Prayas, a South-Asian theatre company in New Zealand. The monologue was written by Bajaj and Shinagde and was performed by the latter.
Despite being peppered with various South Asian references, the play is for everybody to watch, regardless of where they come from.
“At the end of the day, the universality is the story…but if you have an eclectic audience which we do, everyone resonates with what we talk about and its universal irrespective of where you’re from and that’s what we want to focus on,” Bajaj says.
The show is running at Loft, Q Theatre, till September 16, 2023.
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