Oh Ahi, you beauty!
Statutory warning: this is not a review of Ahi Karunaharan’s latest offering to the New Zealand theatre landscape, My Heart Goes Thadak Thadak, which is running at Auckland’s Q Theatre till December 14. As far as that goes, I would recommend every Kiwi, whether South Asian or otherwise, to not miss it for the world. As the cover of this newspaper says, it is the best of Indian theatre in New Zealand. Nuff said.
Ahi Karunaharah, a UK-born Sri Lankan Kiwi, is a phenomenon.
Everyone can get angry on the status quo. But only few people can get angry enough to fight and change the status quo. And he is one of those people. Trained as an actor, and typecast as a terrorist, taxi-driver, and a dairy-owner, he took up writing and direction to provide opportunities to South Asian artists in New Zealand.
After I read this, I just had to meet this guy. And boy, was I impressed.
You see the passion, the anger, the vision, and a deep desire to challenge the prevailing norms, which I think should be the fundamental purpose of any art form.
When I went to watch the play on Friday, I was actually stuck by how many non-Asians were there. I estimated may be over 70 percent. And as there were many cultural references in the acts [Amitabh Bachchan, the greatest living Indian actor, was the very obvious one], I wondered whether the audience is relating to what’s going on.
I asked around, and to my surprise, everyone did.
In fact, this was the very first thing I asked him when we met. His reply has stayed with me since then. “When audience of mixed races come to my shows, I know before hand, who will laugh when. Asians laugh on certain nuisances, Africans on others, Latinos on something else, and Europeans on something very different. But my greatest joy comes when they all laugh together.”
That’s the power of performing art.
But I don’t want to spoil the fun here. Go to our Facebook channel @indiannews.nz and watch the entire conversation with Ahi. There he talks about his journey, his motivations, his inspirations, his future plans, and of course, My Heart Goes Thadak Thadak.
I know this is Ahi’s first production with the Silo Theatre, but this will be a first of many, I am sure.
PS: I must admit that Thadak Thadak was the first time I saw Ahi’s magic on stage. And it just makes me crave for his other creations including - Tea, The Mourning After, One Fine Balance, Swabhoomi:Borrowed Earth, Light Vs Dark: The Adventures of Rama, among others. Hopefully, he will be staging these somewhere soon.
- Gaurav Sharma
All pictures are courtesy Andi Crown Photography