Milling about in Lower Parel

Ghyanta with Isha, played by Pramitee Narke

Homeless people sleeping under flyovers with BMWs on top. Urchins laying their palms out before corporate workers. Fancy high-rises looking down on slums with families of six living in shanties. And defunct mills transformed into glitzy malls. That, in a nutshell, is what the Lower Parel area resembles today. It's a place that epitomises the disparate economic standing of Mumbai's citizens. But that wasn't always the case. Back in the late '80s, when the area's mill culture still hadn't bitten the dust, there were hardly any skyscrapers. Kingston Towers, for instance, is one of the many swanky residential properties that came up later. And it's partly the setting for a play that seeks to highlight the class conflict prevalent in the area ever since real estate companies turned the place into their private playground, displacing poorer families from chawls to zopadpattis (Marathi: slums), or to places like Dombivali and Panvel instead.

The play is called Todi Mill Fantasy, written by Sujay Jadhav. The plot revolves around three friends - Ghyanta, Shirish and Ameya - with stars in their eyes. There is also a girl, Isha. And an assortment of other characters, such as a money-hungry broker named Gawde Bai, help the audience gauge how the changing milieu of the mill district has entrapped succeeding generations in a vicious cycle of corruption.

Director Vinayak Kolwankar gives us a brief sketch of the storyline, which is part reality and part fantasy. It goes like this: Ghyanta encounters Isha one night while cleaning the toilet at Todi Mill Social, where he works. She's a rich girl on the run from cops who want to book her for drunken-driving. So, the boy helps her hide in the loo. They strike up a conversation and Ghyanta tells Isha about his plans to get rich. He says that he wants to set up a Dharavi-like slum tourism start-up with Ameya and Shirish. For that, they had planned to build a ropeway from the roof of Kingston Towers to Kalachowkie, the area where their slum is located. So, they had approached Gawde Bai for logistical help. But she told them, "Why do you want to set up a slum tourism business when Kalachowkie itself will be razed in two years? I have a better idea. Why don't you join me in evicting people from the slum instead and get paid a bomb for it?"

(From left) Jaydeep Marathe, playing Shirish; Kapil Redekar, or Ameya; and Shubhankar Ekbote, or Ghyanta

Kolwankar tells us, "Meanwhile, while Ghyanta is telling Isha this story, Ameya and Shirish are waiting for him with alcohol on the roof of a public toilet within Kingston Towers, to discuss whether they will go ahead with their start-up or join Gawde Bai. But they end up drinking too much. And Shirish, in his stupor, throws a rock that breaks a glass in the complex, for which he's caught and sent to jail. That's the point where the interval begins."

The play then enters the realm of fantasy once the curtains reopen. Now, Ghyanta and Isha are standing on the roof of Kingston Towers, on their wedding day. In this dreamland, Ghyanta is a well-off person after having helped Gawde Bai empty 200 shanties in Kalachowkie. But then, from the rooftop, he sees an identical BMW being parked next to the one he's bought with his new-found wealth. "Who dares buy the same car as you?"

Isha asks him. And that's when they turn around to see Shirish. It's his car. He, too, is wealthy now, having acquired the 300 remaining dwellings in their sum. But Isha is the ultimate prize he is eyeing. And the play ends on a note of how the present-day class conflict in the Lower Parel area affects not just romantic relationships, but friendship as well.

ON March 2, 8.30 pm AT Yashwant Natyamandir, Matunga West.
Call 24333225
Cost Rs 200

The play ends on a note of how the class conflict in the Lower Parel area affects not just romantic relationships, but friendship, too.

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