THE FATEFUL COMEDY

Actor-director Rajat Kapoor talks about adapting Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov into a Hindi play

- Tanul Thakur

IF you didn’t know the source material of Rajat Kapoor’s play, Karamjale Brothers, before walking into it, then chances are high you’d be confused for some time while watching it, too. Because, an adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, it is less Russian vodka and more desi daru. It retains the original’s story and spirit—revolving around a patriarch and his four sons; the identity of his murderer; the questions of free will, rationality, theism (Dostoevsky’s eternal preoccupation)— but, set in Delhi, it unfolds in a hilarious, quasi-farcical tone.

Karamjale Brothers itches for a chance to crack a (silly) joke—its tomfoolery makes the play hilarious, compelling, and endearing. Here, Dostoevsky isn’t treated as a highpriest of modern realism—sombre, sincere, severe—but like a dost, a friend, with whom you can have a swig (or three). In a crucial scene, when the cops bust a party, a character says, “Yeh Noida waalon ko bulana hi nahin chahiye tha (We shouldn’t have called these Noida-types).” The third Karamazov brother, Alyosha, becomes Alok (or “Aloo”), who hears the compliment, “Tu toh sweet hai—you’re like a sweet potato.” A forlorn lover says, “Ishq ne humein nikamma kar diya, warna humaari bhi Kamla Nagar mein kapde ki dukaan thi.”

The performances, across actors, are brilliant, and their chemistry is so organic and free-flowing that, in the play’s first half, you’re swept by them. Vinay Pathak as Fauzdar, or patriarch Fyodor, towers above the rest who, despite his batshit humour, never looks contrived. Adapting a 1,000page Dostoevsky novel into a 100-minute play, though, is a gargantuan challenge, and it starts to strain the latter half of