Play Guide

Like any real-life mother and son, Asha and Ravi Jain have their fair share of disagreements. For example, Asha thinks it’s high time for Ravi to get married and it’s up to her to help him find a bride. Ravi is not so sure. While he respects his mother’s point of view, he knows he definitely doesn’t want his parents to pick a wife for him. He agrees at least to meet the women his parents suggest. Who knows? They might know his type after all and, as long as they give him the time and space to make his own decision, he needn’t feel any pressure to get married before he’s ready, right?

Time and space will be necessary, because Ravi has just embarked on an exciting new phase in his professional life that means marriage will have to wait – at least for a little while. Having just graduated from school in Paris, an opportunity that’s impossible to pass up comes Ravi’s way:

RAVI: I meet Abanthi from Calcutta. I am making theatre in Toronto and she invites me to come to Calcutta to do workshops in theatre. So I decide to travel around India. Normally, I am in Delhi with family, but here was the first time I could go around on my own.

Ravi’s too naive to see that this is an “impossible-to-pass-up” opportunity for his parents as well. What better time to introduce Ravi to potential brides than on his trip to India? Ravi doesn’t suspect a thing, but his mother is determined, for her own reasons, to marry her son off:

ASHA: Marriage is very important in life, once you have acquired your education and skills to make money, now it is time to have some responsibility and have a settled life. Because, you have finished one part of your life, your education, and you need to leave off of me, and get your own family, your own house, your own job. With this pressure gone I can be happy and die.
RAVI: Ma, you’re not going to die!
ASHA: Everybody has to die one day, so why can’t I die happy and in peace, knowing that my son is happily married?

Ravi knows what he’s up against: a whole way of life cherished by his mother’s generation and those before her. Can he balance respect for the old world with love for the new? Can he remain true to himself and bring Asha some peace?