New play 'Jab Khuli Kitaab' opens unheard chapter of love

Happily ever afters aren't as easy as the fairy-tale stories would like you to believe, and proving the same to audience this weekend would be a new play, interestingly titled, 'Jab Khuli Kitaab'.

After a jazz-noir thriller, 'Detective Nau-Do-Gyarah' and a heartwarming tale of rural India's dreams 'Hello Farmaaish', this is Aadyam's, a theatre initiative by Aditya Birla Group, third play of the season to be staged here at Kamani Auditorium.

The play, written and directed by theatre and cinema doyen Saurabh Shukla, promises to take its audience through the struggle of a over five-decades long married couple, who are suddenly confronted with a murky chapter of their life -- the one they thought had long passed them.

It is a story of a couple -- Gopal (which is played by Saurabh only) and Anusuya -- who are deeply in love with each other. But then one day Gopal finds out about the over half-a-century ago affair of his ailing wife, and the otherwise comfortable life of the couple turns topsy-turvy.

Gopal no longer knows what to think, or how to look at his beloved wife again. And just when it seems that things can't get better from thereon, to everyone's surprise, the couple discover that it is actually "never too late for a second chance at happiness".

"Jab Khuli Kitaab, on one hand, is the story of destruction and on the other hand, is the hopeful possibility of a fresh start! A love story for all ages, this play promises to be a memorable evening out at the theatre for the whole family," said the director of the play.

The family drama-comedy, which also happens to be Shukla's third play after 'Two to Tango' and 'Barff', also features eminent theatre actors like Irawati Harshe Mahadev, Danish Hussain, Jyoti Kapoor, Ravi Mahashabde, and Kapil Kumar, among others.