When Peace is the Misnomer

Watching Naseeruddin Shah, live, on stage is Nirvana. There is no other word to describe a legend, a thespian. The effortless emoting leaves you awestruck, but not surprised, and would invariably make you wish you had a wider vocabulary to articulate your thoughts, instead of the run-of -the mill descriptions.

A Walk in the Woods examines the age-old divide of partition's babies, India and Pakistan. Shah's Jamaluddin Luftullah and Rajit Kapur's Ram Chinnappa, diplomats, who negotiate peace proposals to ease tensions between India and Pakistan, make for a whole collage of what might have been. The questions raised, albeit subtly, will leave the discerning viewer with a tinge of sadness. Humor, satire...the 2 hour play has it all. Directed by Shah's wife Ratna, this is a fantabulous directorial debut. Ratna, a noted artist in her own right, has chosen a sensitive but down-to-death path and given it new colour. A concept, which is pure clay in the hands of her iconic husband. The director has taken adequate care to ensure that there are no lengthy monologues that would sag audience attention. 

Can the two nations be friends? Can the mistrust ever end? And finally, can peace negotiators actually forget their professional postures, loosen up and actually be friends? Watch A Walk in the Woods, you will get a piece of thought without getting carried away by ideological demogogy.