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Catch this festival featuring performances by Makarand Deshpande's theatre group
Updated On: 08 July, 2025 09:37 AM IST | Mumbai | Shriram Iyengar
With a week-long festival, Makarand Deshpande’s Ansh Theatre Group turns homeward with a mosaic of performances from their repertoire
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(From left to right) Makarand Deshpande, Aahana Kumra and Sanjay Dadhich in a moment from Sir Sir Sarla
It is easy to lose yourself in a conversation with theatre director Makarand Deshpande. The veteran can speak easily on issues from art, literature to social concerns. Language, right now, seems to be the topic of debate, but Deshpande enjoys watching his characters evolve on different stages. Having written in Marathi and Hindi, and acted in English as well, the writer-director is as ‘cosmopolitan’ as the city itself. “I suppose it was the way I grew up, and the world I grew up in. I started writing in Hindi back in the 1990s,” he shares. This colourful mix of languages, texture, characters and voices will make their way to the Prithvi Theatre stage with Ansh Theatre Group’s Natya Leela this week.
Niladri Kumar performs during a previous staging of the play, Patni
“It all kicks off on Tuesday (today), with Sir Premacha Kai Karaicha?” shares Deshpande, the group’s founder. The play is the Marathi adaptation of his long-running show, Sir, Sir, Sarla. “We had done it in Gujarati also with Pratik [Gandhi] and Bhamini [Oza Gandhi] in the lead.” The adaptation has taken a while, admits the playwright. “I wrote this play in Hindi back in 2001. It was much later in 2019 that I started working on the Marathi adaptation. I must say I had a lot of fun. It is always interesting to see characters that have evolved in another language, and find their feet in your language. Plus, it was familiar to the milieu that was very Maharashtrian in tone,” he adds.
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