‘Kheyechish?’: A play about hunger, hope and survival

Most of us, at some point in our lives, have lived away from home to chase dreams and learn how to survive in a new city. We have all experienced conflicting emotions around yearning for family back home, the need to belong in a new place, and the desire for a better life. Mumbai-based Meghna Roy Choudhury’s bilingual play Kheyechish?, in Hindi and English with a touch of Bengali, captures this experience. The play, set in Mumbai, follows a theatre practitioner and educator in her mid-twenties. She struggles with job insecurity, grief, urban loneliness, ambition, hope, and hunger. In the midst of a fast-paced daily life, the only tender moments of the day centre around her mother’s gentle question: “Kheyechish? Have you eaten?”

The primary set in the play is a kitchen where Meghna cooks two Bengali dishes live onstage: aloo posto (potato curry made with ground poppy seeds) and phena bhaat (rice gruel/porridge)— recipes that originated during the Bengal famine that ravaged the region between the 18th and 19th centuries. As she cooks, the protagonist narrates the story of her daily life in Mumbai. She earns ₹18,000 a month, spending ₹11,500 on rent with ₹6,500 left over for groceries and unpaid theatre rehearsals. With no food left, and no money to buy more, she finally confesses to her mother that she hasn’t eaten.

The food being cooked on stage and savoured by the audience after the show is an important theatrical device. Meghna dexterously performs, moving between multiple characters, while cooking, never allowing the culinary action to distract from the performance. Instead, it adds a layer of intimacy and warmth to the play, making the performance immersive. It brings to mind another play, Saag Meat, written by Bhisham Sahni and performed by Seema Pahwa, who narrates the story of her life while cooking a one-pot-meat dish. According to Meghna, the play is a letter to everyone who’s ever been tired, broke, replaced, hopeful, or just hungry. “It’s for those who’ve lied to their mothers about what they’ve eaten, and those who’ve survived on dreams and vada pavs,” she adds in a press note.

The piece is inspired by Bertolt Brecht’s poem, The Shopper. Meghna studied Brecht in drama school but felt disconnected from Communist ideology as she had witnessed its failure. She later came across another of Brecht’s work, Refugee Conversations, wherein two refugees from Nazi Germany: a bourgeois Jewish physicist and a left-leaning worker discuss the state of the world. While the worker talks about “true art”, the physicist brushes it off and asks, “Have you ever had the pleasure of eating a delicious beef dish?” This paradox of artistic integrity versus basic sustenance resonated with Meghna.

Kheyechish has been supported by the Niloufer Sagar Alumni Production Grant. The play is filled with sharp, often humorous, observations about the realities theatre practitioners and educators face. Meghna recalls how a theatre actor worked as a production manager to earn some money. “Despite a severe back injury, she carried heavy sets, deciding to seek medical care in her home town as she couldn’t afford it in Mumbai,” she says. Meghna calls it chosen hunger and chosen migration. “But then this raises questions like: Is this financial structure okay? Is it valid? Is hunger valid? While experiencing this, I was also observant about a lot of things that we just ignore. I could see everybody going through this,” she observes.

Meghna holds a master’s degree in Physics and is trained in Bharatanatyam and Kalaripayattu. She went on to graduate from the Drama School, Mumbai. It was a very poignant moment that led her to transition to theatre. “The 2012 Nirbhaya tragedy affected me,” she says. It raised the importance of speaking out. “Bharatanatyam is very codified, it has strict boundaries, so it was not enough to voice what I felt. I found theatre a strong medium as you can speak about what you think directly to the people, which is why I chose it,” she adds. Kheyechish? is not only a story of urban survival but also to recognise the unseen labour of theatre practitioners and educators that keep the arts alive. Special mention must be made of Dhanesh Gopalakrishnan’s voiceover, which functions as a second actor in the production.

‘Kheyechish?’ will be performed on 15 January, 7.30 pm, at The Cube, Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre, Mumbai.