Achint Kaur, Saurabh Shukla, Sadia Siddiqui, Preeti Mamgai in a play

In the quest for a little excitement
Though Delhiites had seen these actors in films and on TV, they came out in large numbers to watch Saurabh Shukla, Achint Kaur, Sadia Siddiqui and Preeti Mamgain perform on stage. Presented by The Times of India and written and directed by Shukla, the play '2 To Tango, 3 To Jive'' was staged twice in the capital recently.
In the Hinglish play, Shukla plays Parminder Sethi, a hotelier going through a mid-life crisis.Frustrated by the constant tussle between his wife and mother, he attempts to seek solace in an extra-marital affair. In a bid to develop a relationship with another woman, he starts inviting ladies to his mother’s place when the latter is not around. First arrives the social butterfly, Shonali (Achint), who happens to be a frequent visitor to Parminder’s restaurant in Khan Market. Parminder, who has never cheated on his wife before, nervously tries to make small talk, but she is least interested in conversation and wants unabashedly to get to the love-making. While Parminder feels that he needs to know the woman he will be sleeping with, Shonali finds the exercise futile and leaves.
Back to square one: Next comes Rinky (Sadia Siddiqui), a street smart wannabe actress, who claims that she has met many men in the past who have tried to ‘use’ her and can now easily identify such people and exploit them instead. Parminder’s attempts to lure her to bed go down the drain, as he smokes weed on Rinky’s insistence and passes out. The third woman he tries to have an affair with is his friend’s wife Savita (Preeti), but she keeps talking about soul-searching, pessimism and depression, managing to get on his nerves. In the end, Parminder confesses that all he ever wanted was a little excitement. Realizing that having an affair is not a piece of cake, Parminder asks his wife out on a date over the phone. As the curtains slowly come down, their conversation turns into a heated argument.
READ: Mohan: Achint will continue to be a part of my life
A confused society? After the show, Shukla told us that the idea of the play came from the mid-life crisis he once experienced. “I sought refuge in smoking, not extra-marital affairs, and at the end of show too, we ask our viewers not to get any wrong ideas,” he said and laughed. “The play highlights the confused state the society is in, where the old morality is waning and new parameters of morality are being set. We have done 60-odd shows of the play and we still manage to give something new to our viewers,” he added.
Achint said that she loved the depth of the ‘shallow person’ she portrays. “I know a lot of such people in real life and there’s nothing bad about them. They don’t have facades. They are just the way they are,” she says. Throughout the play, Sadia uses grammatically incorrect English phrases in a Delhi Punjabi accent. “Getting into the character was not that difficult, but having grown up speaking Urdu at home, I kept messing up the accent,” she revealed.
Preeti, who is from Delhi, always looks forward to having more shows in the city. “Dilliwale khul ke express karte hain, which is something an artiste likes. In Mumbai, people are more reserved, she said. Everybody seemed to enjoy the comical yet thought-provoking play, and both the shows received a standing ovation. “I like plays that are either completely in Hindi or completely in English, but for the first time, I have liked a Hinglish play so much,” said Neelam Sehgal, a member of the audience.
Interested in knowing more about TV actors who are also into theatre? Read the article '​TV stars take to the stage for the love of acting'.
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Watch: In conversation with the talented Achint Kaur