An old woman walks into a grocery store. It’s 1934 in Germany and she knows she can’t afford everything she needs; her pension has just been cut. Yet, she has walked into a grocery store to make a statement. “If all of us who have nothing no longer turn up where food is laid out, they may think we don’t need anything. But if we come and are unable to buy, they’ll know how it is,” German poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht concludes this anecdote in his well-known poem, The Shopper. Today, city-based theatremaker Meghna Roy Choudhury will draw parallels between Brecht’s tumultuous Germany on the cusp of a war and the bustling bylanes of Versova.

Bertolt Brecht. Pic Courtesy/Wikimedia Commons