Samudra

Last Friday, I watched the Marathi play ‘Samudra’ (translated: Sea/Ocean), written and directed by Paresh Mokashi. The lead (and only) actors are Atul Kulkarni and Ketaki Thatte. The play was very different from what I had expected. Since I knew that Atul Kulkarni was playing the lead, I had guessed that it would be serious drama and serious it was. And the name ‘Samudra’ suggested a family drama filled with intense and deep emotions. But I had never expected a 70 minute taut whodunit. The play starts tantalizingly with Atul Kulkarni’s character asking what a persons last thought would be before dying. His own thoughts, he says are of immense peace and happiness. And then we go into flashback to earlier that day when he, in his capacity as a CBI officer lands on a remote Pacific island to investigate the mysterious death of 6 scientists and the puzzling absence of the seventh scientist. On the island, he finds the seventh scientist’s assistant lying unconscious. After reviving her, they both try and use the existing evidence (which is scant) and their own knowledge (which is immense) to solve these murders. There is a brilliant twist at the end.
I wouldn’t like to reveal the plot here so I won’t write more on the story but the plot involves plenty of Indian mythology. The director has tried to look at the puranas for a historical perspective rather than as fictional mythology. He uses historical, archeological, anthropological and literary evidence to show that the puranas are historical and factual. Of course, one can’t take them literally (stories of the gods and demons fighting and ‘amrit’ being churned from the ocean etc. can’t be taken literally) but according to the director, the puranas have plenty of hints to genuine historical events.
The only negative aspect (and it’s a huge negative) is that I do not think the director has put in as much effort to study hard science to support his hypothesis as he has into researching the puranas.